This week’s theme
Miscellaneous words

This week’s words
anodyne
salacious
probity
rectitude
emollient

---

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PRO-bi-tee)

MEANING:

noun: Integrity and honesty.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin probus (upright, good). Ultimately from the Indo-European root per- (forward), which also gave us paramount, prime, proton, prow, German Frau (woman), and Hindi purana (old). Earliest documented use: 1425.

USAGE:

“Mark Steel recalled ... rifling through his grandfather’s text-books for salacious descriptions of murders and adultery. His early trust in the probity of the police and the judiciary was later to be shaken from its foundations, and he offered some robust statements of his disgust that police officers are rarely prosecuted for fabricating or manipulating evidence.”
Tom Lappin; A Pleasing Marriage of Surreal Wit and Wisdom; The Scotsman (Edinburgh, UK); Aug 18, 2003.

See more usage examples of probity in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: