piety
Americannoun
PLURAL
pieties-
reverence for God or devout fulfillment of religious obligations.
a prayer full of piety.
- Synonyms:
- awe , veneration , respect
-
the quality or state of being pious.
saintly piety.
- Synonyms:
- holiness , sanctity , devoutness , devotion , godliness
-
dutiful respect or regard for parents, homeland, etc..
filial piety.
-
a pious act, remark, belief, or the like.
the pieties and sacrifices of an austere life.
noun
-
dutiful devotion to God and observance of religious principles
-
the quality or characteristic of being pious
-
a pious action, saying, etc
-
rare devotion and obedience to parents or superiors
Other Word Forms
- superpiety noun
- unpiety noun
Etymology
Origin of piety
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English piete, from Middle French, from Latin pietās, equivalent to pi(us) + -etās, variant (after i ) of -itās; pious, -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Those ways are essentially practicing Catholicism with “baroque piety,” having lots of children in wedlock, seeing the upsides of empires, which “have gotten something of a bad rap,” dying well and having “a memorable funeral.”
From New York Times
“Its piety and its luxury. Its mathematical exactitude and its spiritual excess.”
From New York Times
Standing outside Carter’s front door, Golson pressed Carter on whether his piety would make him a “rigid, unbending president” unable to represent all Americans.
From Washington Times
She prefers the grit and grimness of the original versions of fairy tales, with their “agony disguised as piety” and “cultish suffering.”
From Washington Post
Bakewell describes how he “trashes all the humanistic pieties on the subject of reading,” defending, for example, the right to unapologetically toss a dull book aside.
From New York Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
