Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or condition of being honest; integrity.
  • noun Truthfulness; sincerity.
  • noun Archaic Chastity.
  • noun Botany A Eurasian plant (Lunaria annua) in the mustard family, cultivated for its fragrant purplish flowers and round, flat, papery, silver-white seedpods.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The character or quality of being honest or honorable; upright disposition or conduct; sincerity; honor; virtue.
  • noun Specifically— Chastity; virtuous reputation; honor.
  • noun The virtue of respecting the property rights of others; the absence of any disposition to cheat, steal, or lie.
  • noun Decency; good manners.
  • noun Liberality.
  • noun Credit; reputation.
  • noun In botany, a name of several plants, especially of a small cruciferous plant, Lunaria annua (L. biennis): so called from the transparency of its dissepiments. The perennial honesty is L. rediviva; the maiden's-honesty is Clematis Vitalba.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Honor; honorableness; dignity; propriety; suitableness; decency.
  • noun The quality or state of being honest; probity; fairness and straightforwardness of conduct, speech, etc.; integrity; sincerity; truthfulness; freedom from fraud or guile.
  • noun Chastity; modesty.
  • noun (Bot.) Satin flower; the name of two cruciferous herbs having large flat pods, the round shining partitions of which are more beautiful than the blossom; -- called also lunary and moonwort. Lunaria biennis is common honesty; Lunaria rediva is perennial honesty.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The act, quality, or condition of being honest; to be truthful
  • noun Any of various crucifers in the genus Lunaria, several of which are grown as ornamentals.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun southeastern European plant cultivated for its fragrant purplish flowers and round flat papery silver-white seedpods that are used for indoor decoration
  • noun the quality of being honest

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French honesté (French: honnêteté) (honest + -y).

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Examples

Comments

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  • I wonder if it is symptomatic of our cynical age that so few people list this word?

    June 23, 2007

  • Interesting question, SoG. Now I must check out integrity too.

    June 23, 2007

  • "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

    - Groucho Marx.

    Blame dad, SoG!

    December 24, 2007

  • The name by which I know the plant lunaria.

    January 4, 2008