dignity

The core sense, and the one the word's history explains: Latin dignitās grew from dignus, "worthy", so dignity is first of all worth. Rights language leans on exactly that idea. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (1981) speaks of "the dignity inherent in a human being": worth a person has rather than earns. That sets it apart from dignity as stately manner.

Here worth is performed rather than possessed: the manner and ceremony that announce importance. Latin dignitās already joined grandeur to authority and office, and the bond survives in the sense of high rank, as in Aldous Huxley's quip that official dignity grows in inverse ratio to a country's importance. Keep it apart from inner worth of character: stateliness can be put on without any elevation of mind.

Here the word names a position, not a quality, and Latin dignitās already did both, listing rank and office beside worth. Because a rank can be counted, this sense takes the plural freely: Edward Gibbon writes of "civil and military dignities" handed out to favorites. The usual construction is the dignity of plus a title, as in the dignity of cardinal. Marlowe's "titles of dignity" shows the same tie between rank and name.

One step further from the "rank" meaning: the word names the people who hold the rank, and it counts them as dignities. The King James Bible of 1611 has it this way when it condemns those who "speak evil of dignities". Dignitary is the plainer word for such a person, and choosing it avoids any blur with dignity as worth.