merit

English Online Dictionary. What means merit‎? What does merit mean?

English

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English merit, merite (“quality of person’s character or conduct deserving of reward or punishment; such reward or punishment; excellence, worthiness; benefit; right to be rewarded for spiritual service; retribution at doomsday; virtue through which Jesus Christ brings about salvation; virtue possessed by a holy person; power of a pagan deity”), from Anglo-Norman merit, merite, Old French merite (“moral worth, reward; merit”) (modern French mérite), from Latin meritum (“that which one deserves, deserts; benefit, reward, merit; service; kindness; importance, value, worth; blame, demerit, fault; grounds, reason”), neuter of meritus (“deserved, earned, obtained; due, proper, right; deserving, meritorious”), perfect passive participle of mereō (“to deserve, earn, obtain, merit; to earn a living”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mer- (“to allot, assign”). The English word is probably cognate with Ancient Greek μέρος (méros, “component, part; portion, share; destiny, fate, lot”) and cognate with Old Occitan merit.

The verb is derived from Middle French meriter, Old French meriter (“to deserve, merit”) (modern French mériter), from merite: see further above. The word is cognate with Italian meritare (“to deserve, merit; to be worth; to earn”), Latin meritāre (“to earn regularly; to serve as a soldier”), Spanish meritar (“to deserve, merit; to earn”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: mĕrʹĭt, IPA^(key): /ˈmɛɹɪt/, /ˈmɛɹət/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛɹɪt/, /ˈmɛɹət/
• Rhymes: -ɛɹɪt
• Hyphenation: mer‧it

Noun

merit (countable and uncountable, plural merits)

1. (countable) A claim to commendation or a reward.
2. (countable) A mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence.

   Antonym: demerit
3. (countable, uncountable) Something deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.

   Synonyms: excellence, value, worth

   Antonym: demerit
4. (uncountable, Buddhism, Jainism) The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence and contributes to the person's growth towards enlightenment.
5. (uncountable, law) Usually in the plural form the merits: the substantive rightness or wrongness of a legal argument, a lawsuit, etc., as opposed to technical matters such as the admissibility of evidence or points of legal procedure; (by extension) the overall good or bad quality, or rightness or wrongness, of some other thing.
6. (countable, obsolete) The quality or state of deserving retribution, whether reward or punishment.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

merit (third-person singular simple present merits, present participle meriting, simple past and past participle merited)

1. (transitive) To deserve, to earn.
2. (intransitive) To be deserving or worthy.
3. (transitive, obsolete, rare) To reward.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Japanese: メリット (meritto)

Translations

References

Further reading

• merit (Buddhism) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• merit (Catholicism) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• merit (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “merit”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “merit”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “merit”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• Terim, ermit, miter, mitre, remit, timer

Ladin

Etymology

From Latin meritum.

Pronunciation

Noun

merit m (plural meric)

1. merit

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈmerit]

Etymology 1

Borrowed from French mérite.

Noun

merit n (plural merite)

1. merit

Declension

Further reading

• merit in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)

Etymology 2

Verb

merit

1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of merita

Swedish

Noun

merit c

1. a thing that counts to someone's merit (especially in the context of qualifying for a job, position, or the like), (in that context) a qualification, "a" credential

Usage notes

English merit can partly be considered a false friend. Always thought of as countable in Swedish.

Declension

Derived terms

• meritera

References

• merit in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• merit in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• merit in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)