HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY
To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.
Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.
THE USAGE PANEL
The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.
AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP
The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG
The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.
INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?
Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com
n. pl. fi·del·i·ties 1. a. Faithfulness to obligations, duties, or observances. b. The condition or behavior of engaging in sex only with one's spouse or only with one's partner in a sexual relationship. 2. Exact correspondence with fact or with a given quality, condition, or event; accuracy: the fidelity of the movie to the book. 3. The degree to which an electronic system accurately reproduces the sound or image of its input signal. [Middle English fidelite, from Old French, from Latin fidēlitās, from fidēlis, faithful, from fidēs, faith; see bheidh- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] Synonyms: fidelity, allegiance, fealty, loyalty These nouns denote faithfulness. Fidelity implies the unfailing fulfillment of one's obligations and strict adherence to vows or promises: fidelity to one's spouse; acted in fidelity to religious laws. Allegiance is faithfulness considered as a duty: "I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance" (Henry Clay). Fealty, once applied to the obligation of a vassal to a feudal lord, now suggests faithfulness that one has pledged to uphold: "[The candidate] pushed his experience as an executive and professed his fealty to Democratic Party principles" (David Corn). Loyalty implies a steadfast and devoted attachment that is not easily turned aside: loyalty to an oath; loyalty to a lifelong friend. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
