dishonesty

From Middle English dishoneste (“disgrace, filth”), from Old French deshoneste.

• IPA^(key): /dɪsˈɒnɪ.sti/

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dishonesty (usually uncountable, plural dishonesties)

1. (uncountable) The characteristic or condition of being dishonest.
   • 2022 January 26, Paul Stephen, “Network News: Government's IRP claims condemned as "dishonest"”, in RAIL, number 949, page 7:

     He added: "We've always had spin, especially from Government. But this is not spin. This is dishonesty and so it's our rail media's urgent responsibility to call it out because non-specialist journalists across the country will report this and gradually these untruths will be accepted.

2. (countable) An act which is fraudulent or otherwise dishonest.
3. (uncountable, obsolete) Shamefulness, disgrace.
   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:

     His dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in necessity and denying him.

• honesty

• “dishonesty”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “dishonesty”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

dishonesty

1. Alternative form of dishoneste (“disgrace”)