meritorious

adjective

mer·i·to·ri·ous ˌmer-ə-ˈtȯr-ē-əs

Synonyms of meritorious next

: deserving of honor or esteem

honored for her meritorious service to the company

meritoriously adverb

meritoriousness noun

Did you know?

People who demonstrate meritorious behavior certainly "earn" our respect, and you can use that fact to remember that meritorious comes from the Latin verb merēre, which means "to earn." Nowadays, the rewards earned for meritorious acts are likely to be of an immaterial nature: gratitude, admiration, praise, etc. But that wasn't always so. The history of meritorious recalls a reward more concrete in nature: money. In Latin, meritorious literally means "bringing in money."

Examples of meritorious in a Sentence

She was given an award for meritorious service. worked all night with meritorious determination to get the project done on time

Recent Examples on the Web Gaetz, like Trump, ignited the imagination of some of the GOP base, which sees such disruption as meritorious and evidence of a fight on the little guys’ behalf. —

Philip Elliott, TIME, 4 Oct. 2023 Following Twombly, that number rose to 78 percent, but pretrial dismissal rates also dropped from 88 percent to 82 percent, demonstrating that heightened burdens of proof are not necessarily preventing meritorious cases from being heard. —

Ryan Yonk, National Review, 13 Sep. 2023 Stop fighting meritorious whistleblowers The law creating the IRS whistleblower program gives whistleblowers the right to appeal the IRS’s determination over whether and how much of an award the whistleblower should receive. —

Chris McLamb, Fortune, 9 June 2023 The intent and the consequence are determinative of what is meritorious. —

Abc News, ABC News, 30 June 2023 In a startling but meritorious upset over Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Diaz gains the nod on the strength of a .922 OPS and .315 batting average, second in the AL. —

Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 29 June 2023 This is not to say every whistleblower appeal is meritorious. —

Chris McLamb, Fortune, 9 June 2023 The Pulitzer Prizes honored the Austin American-Statesman, in collaboration with the USA Today Network, on Monday as a finalist for the award's Gold Medal for meritorious public service, the nation's most prestigious journalism honor, for its groundbreaking coverage of the Uvalde mass shooting. —

Austin American-Statesman, USA TODAY, 8 May 2023 Dismissing a meritorious complaint before discovery is one of the worst things any judge can do. —

Olivia Krauth, The Courier-Journal, 8 May 2023 See More

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