Word a Week

Welcome to Word a Week! Each week, we will be diving into the meanings, roots, and uses of words we use everyday, but may not know much about. Words, like anything, have a rich and interesting history that is always moving, changing, and being redefined. Let's learn about the history of what we use everyday –– language!

Integrity (inˈteɡrədē)

This week’s word is “integrity.” We see this word a lot in our relationships, community service, our offices, and in our classrooms. If a person says “I act with integrity,” it means they act honestly –– they are authentic without ulterior, unsaid motives. Maybe unsurprisingly, this word has its root in mathematics! Long before integrity was “integrity,” it was “integrite” (Latin) to mean whole, complete, or more figuratively, untouched. Then later, “integrite” broadened to “integritatem” –– a word with a more figurative weight to it, meaning wholeness, soundness, purity, or correctness. Then as the years went by, the Old French language adopted it as “integrité,” popular in the 1500s, where in the 1540s it began to mean a kind of soundness or genuinity in moral character –– in other words, it meant that one had a strong moral compass. And from the Old French “Integrité,” the English language finally develops “integrity.” 

When thinking about this word as it's used in our relationships and our actions, it may be a good thing to look back on our Old French counterpart. Are we acting with “Integrité?” To mean, are we doing something honestly, standing by our moral compass as we move throughout our day? What might an example be of acting with integrity?

As we reflect on this word, we may have one very famous quote in our minds from a certain writer –– a British novelist, literary scholar, and one of the authors to write the “Chronicles of Narnia,” among many, many other works:

Integrity is doing the right thing, 

even when no one is watching. –– C.S. Lewis