HONESTY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does honesty mean? 

• HONESTY (noun)
  The noun HONESTY has 2 senses:

1. the quality of being honest

2. southeastern European plant cultivated for its fragrant purplish flowers and round flat papery silver-white seedpods that are used for indoor decoration

  Familiarity information: HONESTY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HONESTY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of being honest

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

honestness; honesty

Hypernyms ("honesty" is a kind of...):

righteousness (adhering to moral principles)

Attribute:

square; straight (characterized by honesty and fairness)

corrupt; crooked (not straight; dishonest or immoral or evasive)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "honesty"):

scrupulousness (conformity to high standards of ethics or excellence)

integrity (moral soundness)

incorruption; incorruptness (characterized by integrity or probity)

incorruptibility (the incapability of being corrupted)

candidness; candor; candour; directness; forthrightness; frankness (the quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech)

good faith; straightness (having honest intentions)

truthfulness (the quality of being truthful)

Antonym:

dishonesty (the quality of being dishonest)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Southeastern European plant cultivated for its fragrant purplish flowers and round flat papery silver-white seedpods that are used for indoor decoration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

honesty; Lunaria annua; money plant; satin flower; satinpod; silver dollar

Hypernyms ("honesty" is a kind of...):

herb; herbaceous plant (a plant lacking a permanent woody stem; many are flowering garden plants or potherbs; some having medicinal properties; some are pests)

Holonyms ("honesty" is a member of...):

genus Lunaria; Lunaria (small genus of European herbs: honesty)

 Context examples 

Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover; it's more unselfish anyhow.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Modesty, and all that, is very well in its way, but really a little common honesty is sometimes quite as becoming.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Honesty, in the something between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Was there no honesty in the world?

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“Ain't you, by G—? If you make a brag of your honesty to me,” said the tinker, “I'll knock your brains out.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Moreover, the authors maintain that the data revealed the existence of a curvilinear relationship between prosocial humour and personality dimensions such as kindness and honesty.

(Self-defeating humour promotes psychological well-being, University of Granada)

Mr. Bhaer's devotion was sincere, however likewise effective—for honesty is the best policy in love as in law.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Every emendation of Anne's had been on the side of honesty against importance.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

How I cursed the cowardice of the neighbours; how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed, for her past foolhardiness and present weakness!

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)