rectitude

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English rectitude,^[2] borrowed from Middle French rectitude,^[3][4][5] and directly borrowed from Late Latin rēctitūdō (“straightness, uprightness”),^[3][6][4][2] formed on Latin rēctus (“straight, right”) with the suffix -tūdō,^[3][5] from regō (“to rule”),^[7] from Proto-Indo-European *reg- (“to move in a straight line”).^[6][8] The American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline call the French form Old French.^[8][6] The OED records the French word for honesty in 1370 and for straightness about 1377, and the Latin word for straightness first and for justice, righteousness and truth from the 3rd century on.^[3] Compare Spanish rectitud and Italian rettitudine.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Straightness, and correctness or rightness: both before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, where it is glossed as rigȝtnez.^[3][2] Barnhart cites straightness from a translation of Higden's Polychronicon, probably also before 1425.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word came in as a learned term for physical straightness and for correctness, and the moral sense, which Latin already had, followed about a century later.^[3][6][4] The OED first finds that sense in 1509, Barnhart before 1533 and Etymonline in the 1530s.^[3][4][6] Johnson (1755) set the two senses side by side, as "straitness; not curvity" and as "freedom from moral curvity or obliquity".^[9] The moral sense has since become the main one, and the American Heritage Dictionary lists it first and straightness last.^[8] The Shorter Oxford says it can also shade into self-righteousness.^[10]

Timeline

• before 1425 – straightness; correctness, rightness.^[3][4]
• 1509 – moral uprightness, integrity.^[3]
• 1578 – a straight line, or direction in a straight line (obsolete by 1861).^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Moral uprightness; strict integrity and honesty: The judge was known for her rectitude.^[8][7][5][3]
2. Correctness of judgment or procedure.^[8][7][5][3]
3. The quality of being straight; straightness.^[8][5][3]
4. (obsolete, 1578–1861) A straight line.^[3][5][10]

Word family

• rectitudinous

Related words

• right
• rectify
• rector

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press