Integrity is doing the honest right thing even when nobody is watching. A man of integrity, professional integrity, question her integrity.
It is the strongest word English has for personal honesty, and it implies consistency: somebody with integrity behaves the same way unobserved. The second sense is wholeness or soundness — structural integrity, the integrity of the data, the territorial integrity of a country. The two are the same idea: something with integrity has not been broken into parts that behave differently. Note integral and integer, from the same root.
1nounintegrityDoing the honest right thing even unobserved.
“Her integrity was the only thing nobody ever questioned.”
2nounwholenessWholeness or soundness.
“The structural integrity of the roof was the whole question.”
integrity is honesty or wholeness.
Latin integritas means wholeness, from integer, untouched or whole — in-, not, plus tangere, to touch. The mathematical integer and the moral quality are the same word: something entire and undivided.
Latin
integritās — soundness, integrity
Middle French
intégrité
English, today
integrity
Borrowed from Middle French intégrité, from Latin integritās (“soundness, integrity”), from integer. a doublet of entirety.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Big Ideas