morality play

noun

1. an allegorical form of the drama current from the 14th to 16th centuries and employing such personified abstractions as Virtue, Vice, Greed, Gluttony, etc.

morality play

noun

1. a type of drama written between the 14th and 16th centuries concerned with the conflict between personified virtues and vices

Word History and Origins

Origin of morality play¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

A well-built, blackly comic morality play for which he stayed behind the camera, it’s among both his less metafictional endeavors and his most conventionally absorbing.

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There is a tendency to make economic tales resemble morality plays, where excess and pride lead ineluctably to poverty and humiliation.

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It’s a work of pageantry, inspired in part by Hull’s fascination with medieval morality plays, specifically the story of “Everyman,” an examination of self and of our relationship to a higher power.

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In December, paparazzi captured her in a bikini, and the online commentariat did what it always does: spun a woman’s changing body into a morality play.

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The Episcopal Church courageously refused to play its assigned role in what is essentially a Trump-produced white supremacist morality play.

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