Integrity

A steady commitment to honest and morally consistent conduct.

Reach for it when praising character that holds to sound principles under pressure

Her integrity showed when she corrected the result that favored her own team.

• everyday

  honesty

  truthfulness is the specific trait being praised

  not when Integrity also covers conduct, consistency, and principles beyond telling the truth.

• warm

  trustworthiness

  others can safely rely on the person's conduct

  not when Trust is the result people experience, not the moral consistency itself.

• formal

  principle

  commitment to a moral rule is the central fact

  not when A principle is a standard; integrity is the character shown in following sound standards.

• literary

  uprightness

  elevated prose calls for a word naming moral rectitude

  not when Its old-fashioned tone can make ordinary workplace praise sound pompous.

The state of remaining whole, sound, and undamaged.

Reach for it when describing the reliability of data, structures, or systems

Checksums protected the integrity of the archive during transfer.

• warm

  wholeness

  remaining complete and undivided matters more than technical reliability

  not when Wholeness can sound spiritual or personal in engineering and data contexts.

• professional

  stability

  the structure or system resists unwanted change over time

  not when A stable system may preserve a damaged or internally inconsistent state.

• professional

  validity

  data or reasoning still supports the intended conclusion

  not when Valid information can be incomplete or altered, so validity is not data integrity.

• formal

  soundness

  freedom from structural weakness is the issue

  not when Soundness does not specifically cover completeness or protection from alteration.

• dishonesty
• corruption
• compromise
• damage

• personal integrity

  Her personal integrity mattered most when nobody else could see the records.

• act with integrity

  To act with integrity, the panel disclosed every relevant relationship.

• structural integrity

  Engineers confirmed the structural integrity of the bridge before reopening it.

• merriam-webster, noun sense 1: firm adherence to a code of moral values ↗opens in a new tab for meaning 1 · retrieved 2026-07-26
• merriam-webster, noun sense 2: an unimpaired condition or soundness ↗opens in a new tab for meaning 2 · retrieved 2026-07-26

The definition and the example on this page are written here. The dictionaries above ground which meaning is being described, not the wording.