Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having or exhibiting religious reverence; earnestly compliant in the observance of religion; devout. See Synonyms at religious.
- adj. Marked by conspicuous devoutness: a pious and holy observation.
- adj. Marked by false devoutness; solemnly hypocritical: a pious fraud.
- adj. Devotional: pious readings.
- adj. Professing or exhibiting a strict, traditional sense of virtue and morality; high-minded.
- adj. Commendable; worthy: a pious effort.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having or exhibiting due respect and affection for parents or others to whom respect and affection are due; also, pertaining to or consisting in the duties of respect and affection toward parents or others.
- Having faith in and reverence for the Supreme Being; actuated by faith in and reverence for God; godly; devout: said of persons.
- Dictated by reverence for God; proceeding from piety: said of things: as, pious awe; pious services; pious sorrow.
- Practised under the pretense of religion or for a good end: as, pious frauds.
- Religious, holy, righteous, saintly. See religion.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to piety, devout, exhibiting piety.
- adj. Practiced under the pretext of religion; prompted by mistaken piety.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to piety; exhibiting piety; reverential; dutiful; religious; devout; godly.
- adj. Practiced under the pretext of religion; prompted by mistaken piety
WordNet 3.0
- adj. having or showing or expressing reverence for a deity
Etymologies
- From Latin pius, dutiful.
Examples
“The word pious fits because Republicans really do worship the top 1 percent and the Wall Street tycoons like Romney who manipulate money but don't actually build anything or create net new jobs.”
The Huffington Post: Mike Lux: So Much for a Quiet Monday Afternoon
“Secondly, it is a good example of what I call the pious palimpsest.”
“If you type in the word 'pious' in Google it now comes up 'pious baloney.”
“-- At last, my mother could no longer bear to see me perplex and vex myself in my fruitless search for the letter, and confessed that while we were talking the preceding day, finding that no arguments or persuasions of hers had had any effect, she had determined on what she called a pious fraud: so, while”
“Martita kneeled on the front row with her hands pressed together in pious prayer-like fashion.”
“He has long abandoned the belief that one must speak in pious platitudes about doing what the framers intended, or not legislating from the bench.”
“It reached the ears of a certain pious man that there abode in such a town a blacksmith, who could put his hand into the fire and pull out the iron red-hot, without the flames doing him aught of hurt. 482”
“In the colony Derré de Gand was known as a pious and charitable man who “sought God in the spirit of truth.””
“He believed in a totalitarian, authoritarian system that rejected universal law, absolute rulers who lied and deceived a foolish mass and use religion, that he called a pious fraud, and politcs that disseminate myths that keep the general population in clueless ignorance.”
“A notion is going abroad that the colleges must be dedicated especially to certain pious creeds, to certain economic beliefs; that the colleges must always speak in a hushed tone for fear the working class should hear them.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pious’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Public List: Two by Fives
This is an experiment in public lists--something I've been thinking about for some time. The goal is to create a collection of short, powerful, evocative words.
This is an open list. A...icy, howl, hymn, thorn, fire, vile, mist, blunt, scum, dark, shot, gleam and 137 more...
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Wuthering Heights
Obscure classic English words in Wuthering Heights you barely understand till you check the dictionary out.
conjecture, tenant, sinewy, peevish, pious, advent, tumult, parlour, villanous, stalwart, soliloquise, gaiters and 6 more...
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personality traits
Ways you can behave, think, or feel.
capricious, whimsical, pragmatic, quixotic, petulant, precocious, gregarious, meticulous, spartan, stoic, pious, stalwart
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