morality play

noun

1
: an allegorical play popular especially in the 15th and 16th centuries in which the characters personify abstract qualities or concepts (such as virtues, vices, or death)
2
: something (such as a court trial) which involves a direct conflict between right and wrong or good and evil and from which a moral lesson may be drawn

Examples of morality play in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web It might, simultaneously, be cast as a parable about mutual benefit not being the same as love, a morality play about the distorting influence of money, and a sporting case study in the limited functionality of stardust as a building material. Rory Smith, New York Times, 16 Feb. 2024 His plays toy with form — the morality play, the workplace comedy, the domestic drama — to explore the United States’ posture in relation to the past and its influence on how Americans metabolize the present. Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Dec. 2023 This arguably means Link as a character has more in common with older morality plays than more modern characters. WIRED, 9 Nov. 2023 Kendi’s stark provocation that one is either a racist or an anti-racist epitomized the morality play that the right has come to describe as the essence of woke politics. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2023 Here, Hong offers up a bitterly ironic view of the world of movies, almost an Eastwood-esque morality play in which the greatest danger that art poses to an artist is demagogy—the use of fame for personal gain, rather than in the interest of the work itself. Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 5 May 2022 The allegorical characters in this morality play are Beauty, Pleasure, Time, and Truth. Beth Wood, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 June 2023 All of this shows how the banking crisis has become in part a morality play with crypto—a shady and invasive foreign species to the world of New York finance—a central villain. Jeff John Roberts, Fortune Crypto, 16 Mar. 2023 Brooker has a penchant for including references to previous characters, settings and storylines in new episodes of the show, and Season 6 was no different, seemingly proving once and for all that every single one of these sobering morality plays occurs in the same extended universe. Philip Ellis, Men's Health, 26 June 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'morality play.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1866, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of morality play was in 1866

Dictionary Entries Near morality play

Cite this Entry

“Morality play.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality%20play. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

morality play

noun
: a type of play popular especially in the 15th and 16th centuries in which the characters stand for moral qualities (as virtue or vice) or conditions (as death)

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