merit
Forms
- Plural
- merits
- present (v1)
- merit
- past (v2)
- merited
- past participle (v3)
- merited
- present participle
- meriting
- 3rd person singular
- merits
Definitions
1.A claim to commendation or a reward.
2.A mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence.
- For her good performance in the examination, her teacher gave her ten merits.
3.Something deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.
- His reward for his merit was a check for $50.
4.The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence and contributes to the person's growth towards enlightenment.
- At funerals, acts of sharing religious merit are central and relatives of the deceased make merit in order to ensure that the departed family member will have a favourable rebirth.
1.To deserve, to earn.
- What other could I answer save "I come"? / I said it, somewhat with that colour ting'd / Which oftimes pardon meriteth for man.
- Her performance merited wild applause.
- Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.
2.To be deserving or worthy.
- They were punished as they merited.
Frequency
Overall
Rare· #4696
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Rare
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Etymology
From Middle English merit, merite (“quality of person’s character or conduct deserving of reward or punishment; such reward or punishment; excellence, worthiness; benefit; right to be rewarded for spiritual service; retribution at doomsday; virtue through which Jesus Christ brings about salvation; virtue possessed by a holy person; power of a pagan deity”), from Anglo-Norman merit, merite, Old French merite (“moral worth, reward; merit”) (modern French mérite), from Latin meritum (“that which one deserves, deserts; benefit, reward, merit; service; kindness; importance, value, worth; blame, demerit, fault; grounds, reason”), neuter of meritus (“deserved, earned, obtained; due, proper, right; deserving, meritorious”), perfect passive participle of mereō (“to deserve, earn, obtain, merit; to earn a living”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mer- (“to allot, assign”).