MERIT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Merit

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/mˈɛrət/ Listen

noun

Merit n.

The quality or state of deserving well or ill; desert. "Here may men see how sin hath his merit." "Be it known, that we, the greatest, are misthought For things that others do; and when we fall, We answer other's merits in our name."

Esp. in a good sense: The quality or state of deserving well; worth; excellence. "Reputation is... oft got without merit, and lost without deserving." "To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, And every author's merit, but his own."

Reward deserved; any mark or token of excellence or approbation; as, his teacher gave him ten merits. "Those laurel groves, the merits of thy youth."

verb

Merit v. t. (past & past part. merited; pres. part. meriting)

To earn by service or performance; to have a right to claim as reward; to deserve; sometimes, to deserve in a bad sense; as, to merit punishment. "This kindness merits thanks."

To reward. (R. & Obs.)

Merit v. i. To acquire desert; to gain value; to receive benefit; to profit. (Obs.)

See images of 'Merit'

Etymology of 'Merit'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Merit" Quotes from Famous Books

... take the cruelest possible advantage of it. So far from feeling any consideration for you, she was only additionally imbittered toward you. She protested against your being permitted to claim the merit of placing her in her right position here by your own voluntary avowal of the truth. She insisted on publicly denouncing you, and on forcing Lady Janet to dismiss you, unheard, before the whole household! 'Now I can have my revenge! ...

— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... dangerous labor. It was eight feet below the street, between sixty and seventy feet in length, and barely large enough for a full-grown person to crawl through, by pulling and pushing himself along with his hands and feet. Among the officers entitled to merit in the execution of this work, Col. T. E. Rose, of Pennsylvania, ...

— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... holy abbot of Clairvaux, had been a great admirer of the Templars. He wrote a letter to the Count of Champagne, on his entering the order (1123), praising the act as one of eminent merit in the sight of God; and it was determined to enlist the all-powerful influence of this great ecclesiastic in favor of the fraternity. "By a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible world, by the refusal ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... catalogues of all the exhibitions, and there is no league to keep out any individual's pictures anywhere. That is one of the triumphs of our art—that, while judges may sometimes err and exclude a good picture or select a poor one, there is a general open-mindedness in recognizing merit wherever it exists. A well-known worker is pretty sure to have his photographs declined by the judges in most of the photographic exhibitions if he falls below his standard, and, on the other hand, a gifted beginner will quickly get a place in the seats of the mighty if he can produce the photographs ...

— Pictorial Photography in America 1922 • Pictorial Photographers of America

... possible, expending their ingenuity of mind in academical meetings, criticising the verbal expression of reports with extreme subtlety, too fastidious to design original work, too much occupied for patient research, and ending either in a bitter sense of unrecognised merit, or in ...

— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

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