respectability
[ri-spek-tuh-bil-i-tee]
- the state or quality of being respectable.
- respectable social standing, character, or reputation.
- a respectable person or persons.
- respectabilities, things accepted as respectable.
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Origin of respectability
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for respectability
Contemporary Examples
Respectability awaits even iconoclasts if they stick around long enough.
Prince Returns From the Wilderness and, Thankfully, Is as Restless as EverKeith Phipps
October 1, 2014
Somehow, a bold and eccentric encampment gave heart to progressives at all levels of respectability.
Or, to put this another way, the person who puts her hope in respectability is like the foolish man who built his house on sand.
Queen Victoria was the mother of the new era of respectability, but her father Edward, Duke of Kent, had a mistress for 25 years.
She was in fact a satirist of society, and of its notions of respectability.
Historical Examples
Of course, there was no such search for him as is made for the man of respectability and position.
Ester Ried Yet SpeakingIsabella Alden
And after the striking of the blow, this respectability was continued in immobility and silence.
The Secret AgentJoseph Conrad
Officialdom is their divinity and respectability their key to life.
Mountain MeditationsL. Lind-af-Hageby
A sort of New England respectability and quietness hung over it.
Louisiana LouWilliam West Winter
Dignity and respectability have ruined alike the historian and the biographer.
James BoswellWilliam Keith Leask
Word Origin and History for respectability
n.
1785, from respectable + -ity.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper