Word of the Day

: June 30, 2017

fidelity

noun fuh-DELL-uh-tee

What It Means

1 : the quality or state of being faithful

2 : accuracy in details : exactness

3 : the degree to which an electronic device (such as a record player, radio, or television) accurately reproduces its effect (such as sound or picture)

fidelity in Context

"Fidelity to promises is a civic virtue at least dating back to ancient Greek and Roman ethics, and probably to the origins of society.… The idea that promises ought to be kept is one of our most intuitive and widely shared moral beliefs." — Khristy Wilkinson, The Chattanooga (Tennessee) Times Free Press, 29 Apr. 2017

"Perhaps some of you will recall that I didn't like Riverdale's pilot episode. Sometimes it's good to be proven wrong…. Perhaps fully suspending any sense of fidelity to the original comics allowed my opinion on the show to change." — Deborah Krieger, Pop Matters, 15 May 2017

Did You Know?

You can have faith in fidelity, which has existed in English since the 15th century; its etymological path winds back through Middle English and Middle French, eventually arriving at the Latin verb fidere, meaning "to trust." Fidere is also an ancestor of other English words associated with trust or faith, such as fiduciary (which means "of, relating to, or involving a confidence or trust" and is often used in the context of a monetary trust) and confide (meaning "to trust" or "to show trust by imparting secrets"). Nowadays fidelity is often used in reference to recording and broadcast devices, conveying the idea that a broadcast or recording is "faithful" to the live sound or picture that it reproduces.