Immorigerous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

  1. Not conforming to moral standards or showing a lack of respect for proper conduct and decency
  2. Devoid of adherence to ethical principles and characterized by a disregard for societal norms and moral conduct
  3. Lacking conformity to accepted moral values and demonstrating a clear absence of respect for societal ethics and decency

Etymology: When a Roman humored someone, he "carried their mood." The Latin phrase was "morem gerere," and it meant to oblige a person, to fall in with their wishes. Someone who did this habitually was "morigerus": accommodating, compliant, dutiful. Roman comedy uses the phrase constantly, usually for slaves placating masters and spouses placating each other. The first half of that phrase holds the surprise. "Mos," genitive "moris," meant a person's will or humor, and more broadly custom and manner. Its plural "mores" gave Cicero the material for "moralis," which he coined to translate the Greek "ethikos." So the root of "moral" is not virtue but habit: what people customarily do. Latin also had the opposite, "immorigerus": uncomplying, disobedient, the person who will not carry anyone's mood but his own. English borrowed "morigerous" from Latin, probably around 1600, as a learned word for "obedient" or "dutiful." It was never common, and it often carried a faint whiff of servility. The negative form can be read as English attaching the Latin-derived prefix "im-" (the Latin "in-," altered before an "m") to "morigerous," though the Latin "immorigerus" already existed and may well have been the model. By the seventeenth century, writers and dictionary makers were using it to mean disobedient, rude or uncivil. The modern gloss, "lacking moral behavior," may come from hearing the word as a grander cousin of "immoral." The association is plausible, since the two words really do share the Latin "mos." But the older sense is narrower. Being immorigerous originally meant not wickedness but a refusal to go along: the guest who won't be pleasant, the servant who won't obey, the child who answers back.