• Respectability

    Full definition of respectability

    Noun

    respectability

    (usually uncountable; plural respectabilities)
    1. The quality of being respectable.
      • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate Chapter Prologue, Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:...it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
      • 2012, June 19, Phil McNulty, England 1-0 Ukraine, But once again Hodgson's men found a way to get the result they required and there is a real air of respectability about their campaign even though they had to survive a first-half siege from a Ukraine side desperate for the win they needed to progress.
    2. The class of respectable people.
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