merit
Pluralmerits
Pluralmerits
Formsmerits, meriting, merited
- 1The quality of being deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.
The proposal has genuine merit and deserves serious attention.
Judges evaluated each entry on its artistic merit alone.
Similarvalue, worth, excellence
Oppositedemerit
Note
Used as a mass noun, it gives us phrases like has merit, little merit and artistic merit. As a countable noun, it names a single good quality. Worth and value come close, but Richard Fuller complained in 1877 that worth had come to mean almost nothing but money. Pope's praise of Roscommon, who knew "ev'ry Author's Merit but his own", shows the quality-of-character use at its most elegant.
- 2To deserve or earn something through one's qualities or actions.
The novel merits a place among the year's finest works.
Few proposals merit this level of scrutiny.
Similardeserve, warrant, earn, justify
Note
The verb takes what is deserved as its object: a performance merits applause, and a claim merits a hearing. The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) speaks of the ovation an eccentricity "merited". H. F. Cary's Dante of 1814 keeps the old -eth form: "pardon meriteth". Compare the obsolete "reward" verb, where the object is the person repaid.
- 3A justified claim to commendation or to a reward.
The application set out each merit in clear detail.
Her professional merits gave her a strong claim to the role.
Similarstrength, qualification, credential, virtue
Oppositedemerit, weakness, flaw
Note
In Shakespeare's Othello this claim is set against reputation, which is "oft got without merit and lost without deserving". The pairing with deserving is old. Middle English merit, merite could mean deserving punishment as well as reward, and even the retribution of doomsday. Modern English keeps the favorable half. The neutral range survives only in the obsolete "deserving requital" use.
- 4A mark or token given to show approval or to recognize excellence.
Each correct answer earned the pupil a merit.
He racked up enough merits to win the class prize.
Similarcredit, star, commendation
Oppositedemerit
Note
Here merit becomes a unit, something counted out and collected, as when a teacher gives a pupil ten merits. Its opposite is the demerit, a mark against. Matthew Prior's ode to the Queen uses a grander version, calling laurel groves "the merits of thy youth": the honors themselves, worn as visible tokens of what was won.
- 5The substantive rightness or wrongness of a legal argument or lawsuit, as distinct from technical matters like the admissibility of evidence or procedure; by extension, the overall quality or rightness of anything.
The court declined to rule on the merits until procedural questions were settled.
Judges may dismiss a timely, properly filed claim without merit before it ever reaches trial.
Similarsubstance, validity, worth
Note
Lawyers use the plural as a fixed contrast. A case won on the merits is won on substance, even if the winner pays costs for a procedural slip. Courts rule on the merits and give judgment on the merits, and Mathew Bacon's New Abridgment of the Law (1740) already has a plaintiff showing cause "on the Merits". Outside court, we judge an idea on its merits. The singular appears mostly in without merit.
- 6To be deserving or worthy of something.
Honors were distributed strictly as each candidate merited.
Soldiers advance as they merit, without favoritism.
Similardeserve
Note
Without an object, the verb usually sits in an as-clause: punished as they merited, rewarded as each merited. Early uses are theological. Thomas More in 1532 pairs it with deserve: "meryted and deserued by theyr obedyence". In 1753, Thomas of Jesus has Christ meriting for others by the cross, so the deserving is done on someone else's behalf.
- 7A person's accumulated good deeds, believed to determine how favorable their next existence will be and help them progress toward enlightenment.
Devotees make offerings at the temple to accumulate merit.
Releasing the caged birds was thought to generate merit.
Oppositedemerit
Note
In Buddhist and Jain teaching, merit is a religious store rather than a compliment: something you make, acquire and even share. Make merit is the standard phrase, and merit-making names the practice. The Church Missionary Gleaner of 1855 uses it for feeding priests in Siam, and Monica Lindberg Falk describes relatives sharing merit at funerals to secure a favorable rebirth. The term renders Sanskrit puṇya.
Less common meanings
- 8The quality or state of deserving retribution, whether that retribution is reward or punishment.
Be it known, that we the greateſt are mis-thoght / For things that others do : and when we fall, / We anſwer others merits, in our name / Are therefore to be pittied.
c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”Note
This two-sided meaning, where deserving could mean deserving blame, has dropped out of the language. In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the great "answer others merits, in our name". They pay for what other people's conduct has earned, and what is earned there is censure. A modern reader would hear praise, so the word can no longer safely carry the punitive side.
- 9To reward someone, bestowing a return for their service or worth.
The abbot merited the pilgrims with bread and shelter.
Ancient patrons would merit their poets with purses of silver.
Note
Here the giver, not the deserver, does the meriting. George Chapman's Iliads of 1611 has "The king will merit it with gifts", meaning the king will repay with presents. Because the modern verb means to deserve, a reader today would take such a line backwards. In current writing, reward or recompense says this plainly.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
The noun comes from Middle English "merit," borrowed via Anglo-Norman and Old French "merite" (moral worth, reward) from Latin "meritum" (that which one deserves, reward, value), a form of the verb "mereō" (to deserve, earn), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European "*(s)mer-" (to allot, assign). It is probably related to Ancient Greek "méros" (part, portion, lot). The verb comes from Middle and Old French "meriter" (to deserve, merit), from the same root.