moral

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
2. adj. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
3. adj. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
4. adj. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
5. adj. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.
6. adj. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.
7. n. The lesson or principle contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event.
8. n. A concisely expressed precept or general truth; a maxim.
9. n. Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong: a person of loose morals; a decline in the public morals.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Of or pertaining to rules of right conduct; concerning the distinction of right from wrong; ethical. In this sense moral is opposed to non-moral, which denotes the absence of ethical distinctions.
2. In accord with, or controlled by, the rules of right conduct: opposed to immoral. In this sense moral is often used specifically of conduct in the sexual relation.
3. In a special sense, relating to the private and social duties of men as distinct from civil responsibilities: specifically so used in the Hegelian philosophy.
4. Connected with the perception of right and wrong in conduct, especially when this is regarded as an innate power of the mind; connected with or pertaining to the conscience. See moral sense, moral law, below.
5. Capable of distinguishing between right and wrong; hence, bound to conform to what is right; subject, to a principle of duty; accountable.
6. Depending upon considerations of what generally occurs; resting upon grounds of probability: opposed to demonstrative: as, moral evidence; moral arguments. See moral certainty, under certainty.
7. Of or pertaining to morals.
8. Having a moral; emblematical; allegorical; symbolical.
9. Pertaining to the mind; mental: opposed to physical.
10. Pertaining to the will, or conative element of the soul, as distinguished from the intellect or cognitive part. This refers to the usual pre-Kantian division of the soul.
11. Moralizing.
12. See law.
13. Ethics; the science of morality.
14. n. Morality; the doctrine or practice of the duties of life.
15. n. plural Conduct; behavior; course of life in regard to right and wrong; specifically, sexual conduct: as, a man of good morals.
16. n. Moral philosophy; ethics.
17. n. The doctrine inculcated by a fable, apologue, or fiction; the practical lesson which anything is designed to teach; hence, intent; meaning.
18. n. An emblem, personification, or allegory; especially, an allegorical drama. See morality. 6.
19. n. A certainty.
20. n. An exact likeness; a counterpart.
21. n. Synonyms See morality.
22. n. See inference.
23. To moralize.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially for teaching right behaviour.
2. adj. Conforming to a standard of right behaviour; sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment.
3. adj. Capable of right and wrong action.
4. adj. Probable but not proved.
5. adj. Positively affecting the mind, confidence, or will.
6. n. of a narrative The ethical significance or practical lesson.
7. n. Moral practices or teachings: modes of conduct.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Relating to duty or obligation; pertaining to those intentions and actions of which right and wrong, virtue and vice, are predicated, or to the rules by which such intentions and actions ought to be directed; relating to the practice, manners, or conduct of men as social beings in relation to each other, as respects right and wrong, so far as they are properly subject to rules.
2. adj. Conformed to accepted rules of right; acting in conformity with such rules; virtuous; just. Used sometimes in distinction from religious.
3. adj. Capable of right and wrong action or of being governed by a sense of right; subject to the law of duty.
4. adj. Acting upon or through one's moral nature or sense of right, or suited to act in such a manner. Sometimes opposed to material and physical.
5. adj. Supported by reason or probability; practically sufficient; -- opposed to legal or demonstrable
6. adj. Serving to teach or convey a moral
7. n. The doctrine or practice of the duties of life; manner of living as regards right and wrong; conduct; behavior; -- usually in the plural.
8. n. The inner meaning or significance of a fable, a narrative, an occurrence, an experience, etc.; the practical lesson which anything is designed or fitted to teach; the doctrine meant to be inculcated by a fiction; a maxim.
9. n. A morality play. See Morality, 5.
10. v. obsolete To moralize.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the significance of a story or event
2. adj. psychological rather than physical or tangible in effect
3. adj. concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles