merit

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Superior quality or worth; excellence: a proposal of some merit; an ill-advised plan without merit.
2. n. A quality deserving praise or approval; virtue: a store having the merit of being open late.
3. n. Demonstrated ability or achievement: promotions based on merit alone.
4. n. An aspect of character or behavior deserving approval or disapproval. Often used in the plural: judging people according to their merits.
5. n. Christianity Spiritual credit granted for good works.
6. n. Law A party's strict legal rights, excluding jurisdictional, personal, or technical aspects.
7. n. The factual content of a matter, apart from emotional, contextual, or formal considerations.
8. v. To earn; deserve. See Synonyms at earn¹.
9. v. To be worthy or deserving: Pupils are rewarded or corrected, as they merit.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. That which is deserved; honor or reward due; recompense or consideration deserved.
2. n. The state or fact of deserving; desert, good or bad; intrinsic ground of consideration or award: most commonly in the plural: as, to treat a person according to his merits.
3. n. Specifically The state or fact of deserving well; good desert; worthiness of reward or consideration.
4. n. Good quality in general; excellence.
5. n. That which deserves consideration or reward; ground of desert; claim to notice or commendation: as, to enumerate the merits of a person, a book, or a scheme.
6. n. plural In law, the right and wrong of a ease; the strict legal or equitable rights of the parties, as distinguished from questions of procedure and matters resting in judicial discretion or favor; essential facts and principles that lead to an opinion clear of personal bias: as, to judge a case on its merits.
7. To deserve; earn a right or incur a liability to; be or become deserving of: as, to merit reward or punishment.
8. To deserve as a reward; earn by commendable action or conduct.
9. To reward.
10. Synonyms and See desert, n.
11. To acquire merit, benefit, or profit.

Wiktionary

1. n. Something deserving good recognition.
2. n. Something worthy of a high rating.
3. n. A claim to commendation or reward.
4. n. The quality of deserving reward.
5. v. transitive To earn or to deserve.
6. v. intransitive To be worthy or deserving.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The quality or state of deserving well or ill; desert.
2. n. The quality or state of deserving well; worth; excellence.
3. n. Reward deserved; any mark or token of excellence or approbation.
4. v. To earn by service or performance; to have a right to claim as reward; to deserve; sometimes, to deserve in a bad sense.
5. v. R. & Obs. To reward.
6. v. obsolete To acquire desert; to gain value; to receive benefit; to profit.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the quality of being deserving (e.g., deserving assistance)
2. n. any admirable quality or attribute
3. v. be worthy or deserving