Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having worth, merit, or value.
  • adjective Honorable; admirable.
  • adjective Having sufficient worth; deserving.
  • noun An eminent or distinguished person.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To render worthy; exalt.
  • Having worth; of high standing or degree; honorable; worshipful; excellent; deserving of honor, respect, praise, mention, attention, or the like; valuable; noble; estimable; virtuous; meritorious: noting persons and things.
  • Of high rank or social station.
  • Deserving; meriting: sometimes followed by of before the thing merited or deserved, sometimes by an accusative directly, and sometimes by an infinitive.
  • Well-deserved.
  • In keeping with the standing, character, dignity, etc. (of); fit; fitted; proper; suited; suitable: with of, for, or an infinitive clause.
  • noun A person of eminent worth; one distinguished for serviceable and estimable qualities: as, Fuller's “History of the Worthies of England.”
  • noun A local celebrity; a character; an eccentric: as, a village worthy.
  • noun Anything of worth or excellence.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To render worthy; to exalt into a hero.
  • noun A man of eminent worth or value; one distinguished for useful and estimable qualities; a person of conspicuous desert; -- much used in the plural.
  • adjective Having worth or excellence; possessing merit; valuable; deserving; estimable; excellent; virtuous.
  • adjective Having suitable, adapted, or equivalent qualities or value; -- usually with of before the thing compared or the object; more rarely, with a following infinitive instead of of, or with that; ; entitled to; meriting; -- usually in a good sense, but sometimes in a bad one.
  • adjective obsolete Of high station; of high social position.
  • adjective (Eng. Law of Descent) most worthy of those of the same blood to succeed or inherit; -- applied to males, and expressive of the preference given them over females.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective having worth, merit, or value
  • adjective honourable or admirable
  • adjective deserving, or having sufficient worth
  • noun a distinguished or eminent person
  • verb transitive To render or treat as worthy; exalt; revere; honour; esteem; respect; value; reward; adore.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an important, honorable person (word is often used humorously)
  • adjective having qualities or abilities that merit recognition in some way
  • adjective worthy of being chosen especially as a spouse
  • adjective having worth or merit or value; being honorable or admirable

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English worthy, wurthi, from Old English *weorþiġ ((not found); "worthy"), equivalent to worth +‎ -y. Cognate with Dutch waardig ("worthy"), Middle Low German werdig ("worthy"), German würdig ("worthy"), Swedish värdig ("worthy"), Icelandic verðugt ("worthy").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English worthien, wurthien, from Old English weorþian ("to esteem, honor, worship, distinguish, celebrate, exalt, praise, adorn, deck, enrich, reward"), from Proto-Germanic *werþōnan (“to be worthy, estimate, appreciate, appraise”), from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn, wind”). Cognate with German werten ("to rate, judge, grade, score"), Swedish värdera ("to evaluate, rate, size up, assess, estimate"), Icelandic virða ("to respect, esteem").

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