fidelity
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fidelity
- /fɪˈdɛlɪti/ UK
- /fɪˈdɛləti/ US
- /faɪ-/ US
- [-ɾi] US
Where it comes from
From Late Middle English fidelite (“allegiance, fealty; faithfulness, trust; agreement made in good faith”), from Old French fidélité (“faithfulness, fidelity”) (modern French fidélité), from Latin fidēlitās (“faithfulness, fidelity”), from fidēlis (“dependable, trustworthy; faithful, loyal”) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns denoting a state of being). Fidēlis is derived from fidēs (“belief, faith; confidence, trust; loyalty, fidelity; etc.”) (from Proto-Indo-European *bʰidʰ-, the zero-grade of *bʰeydʰ- (“to convince; to trust”) (whence English bide)) + -ēlis (a variant of -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship)). Doublet of fealty.
noun fidelities
- Often followed by to or towards: faithfulness or loyalty towards a person, a group, one's civic or moral duties, etc.; allegiance; (countable) an instance of this. the fidelity of the civil servants to their country
- Faithfulness or loyalty to one's partner or spouse, including restraint from romantic or sexual relationships with third parties. In vvhat other houſe, public or private, can equal ſecurity be found for the fidelity of the married, for the chaſtity of the ſingle, and for the extinction of drunkenneſs, that murderous infatuation, in compariſon of vvhich every thing elſe that goes by the name of vice is virtue?
- Faithfulness to God and one's religion. Near-synonym: faith
- Accuracy, or exact correspondence, to some given fact or quality; exactness. [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge and [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe are the only critics who have expressed our convictions with any adequate fidelity: but there is in all cultivated minds a silent appreciation of his [Shakespeare's] superlative power and beauty, which, like Christianity, qualifies the perio
- The closeness of association between an organism and a plant community.
- Chiefly in high fidelity, low fidelity, etc.: the degree to which a system accurately reproduces an input such as an image or sound. By placing them closer to the source, we can reduce the number of messages in the system and this in turn is likely to improve the fidelity of the system.
- In by one's fidelity, to break fidelity, to give fidelity, etc.: one's pledge or promise to act in good faith; an oath, a word of honour. By my fidelity this is not vvell.
- Of a person: honesty, trustworthiness; (countable) an instance of this. [O]ure lord Jeſus hymſelfe dooth tetifye vnto vs that we receiue hys body and blood. Ought we to doubte of his fidelitie and testimony?
