- 1
Rectitude is honest, upright behaviour — doing what you believe is morally right, even when it would be easier not to. It is a high, slightly old-fashioned noun. You meet it in phrases like moral rectitude, and in writing about judges, leaders, or people held up as examples. Ordinary speech prefers honesty, integrity, or simply “she is straight with people.” Rectitude is about character, not about getting a maths answer right: a person of rectitude may still a word. The old picture under it is “straightness,” the same picture you hear in “straighten up” when someone means “behave well.”
正直；端正的品行
組成From Late Latin rectitūdō, “straightness, uprightness,” from Latin rectus, “straight.”
同家族的字
- rectifyboth go back to Latin rectus, “straight” or “right”
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
rectitudenoun/ˈɹɛk.tɪ.tjuːd/
- 1
Straightness; the state or quality of having a constant direction and not being crooked or bent.
- 2
archaicThe fact or quality of being right or correct; correctness of opinion or judgement.
- A consciousness of rectitude can be a terrible thing, and in those days I didn't just think that I was right: I thought that “we” (our group of International Socialists in particular) were being damn well proved right.
- 3
Conformity to the rules prescribed for moral conduct; (moral) uprightness, virtue.
- We, therefore, the Repreſentatives of the united States of America, in General Congreſs, Aſsembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of theſe Colonies, ſolemnly publiſh and declare, That theſe United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States[…]
- “Sit with her all night if we have to,” Syd affirms with strenuous rectitude.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。