LOYALTY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does loyalty mean? 

• LOYALTY (noun)
  The noun LOYALTY has 3 senses:

1. the quality of being loyal

2. feelings of allegiance

3. the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action

  Familiarity information: LOYALTY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LOYALTY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of being loyal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

loyalty; trueness

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

faithfulness; fidelity (the quality of being faithful)

Attribute:

loyal (steadfast in allegiance or duty)

disloyal (deserting your allegiance or duty to leader or cause or principle)

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

staunchness; steadfastness (loyalty in the face of trouble and difficulty)

allegiance; fealty (the loyalty that citizens owe to their country (or subjects to their sovereign))

nationalism; patriotism (love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it)

regionalism (loyalty to the interests of a particular region)

Antonym:

disloyalty (the quality of being disloyal)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Feelings of allegiance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

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

love (a strong positive emotion of regard and affection)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

allegiance; commitment; dedication; loyalty

Context example:

they felt no loyalty to a losing team

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

cooperation (joint operation or action)

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

communalism (loyalty and commitment to the interests of your own minority or ethnic group rather than to society as a whole)

consecration (a solemn commitment of your life or your time to some cherished purpose (to a service or a goal))

devotion (commitment to some purpose)

enlistment (the act of enlisting (as in a military service))

faith (loyalty or allegiance to a cause or a person)

 Context examples 

A relationship bound by mutual interests or loyalties.

(Close Relationship, NCI Thesaurus)

He was a large-muscled, stolid sort of a man, in whom little imagination was coupled with immense initiative, and who possessed, withal, loyalty and affection as sturdy as his own strength.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

One has to come into the country to hear honest loyalty, for a sneer and a gibe are more the fashions in town.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As a Taurus, you tend to like to keep things “as is,” and your loyalty and steadfastness are among your most lovable qualities.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Still, as the shadows deepened, she spoke of valor and virtue, of loyalty, honor, and fame, and still they sat drinking in her words while the fire burned down and the red ash turned to gray.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But mothers, sisters, and friends may help to make the crop a small one, and keep many tares from spoiling the harvest, by believing, and showing that they believe, in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable family, in the usual terms; how it had been first settled in Cheshire; how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff, representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year of Charles II, with all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married; forming altogether two handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with the arms and motto:—Principal seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county of Somerset, and Sir Walter's handwriting again in this finale:—Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of the second Sir Walter.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Meg longed to go and tell Mother, but a sense of shame at her own short-comings, of loyalty to John, who might be cruel, but nobody should know it, restrained her, and after a summary cleaning up, she dressed herself prettily, and sat down to wait for John to come and be forgiven.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Lessons in patience were so sweetly taught her that she could not fail to learn them, charity for all, the lovely spirit that can forgive and truly forget unkindness, the loyalty to duty that makes the hardest easy, and the sincere faith that fears nothing, but trusts undoubtingly.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mr. Tudor's uncle had married an English lady who was third cousin to a living lord, and Amy regarded the whole family with great respect, for in spite of her American birth and breeding, she possessed that reverence for titles which haunts the best of us—that unacknowledged loyalty to the early faith in kings which set the most democratic nation under the sun in ferment at the coming of a royal yellow-haired laddie, some years ago, and which still has something to do with the love the young country bears the old, like that of a big son for an imperious little mother, who held him while she could, and let him go with a farewell scolding when he rebelled.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)