condign
Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- adjective Deserved; adequate.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- adjective Deserving; worthy: applied to persons.
- adjective Well-deserved; worthily bestowed; merited; suitable: applied to things (with reference to praise or thanks).
- adjective With reference to censure, punishment, or what is of the nature of punishment: the more common use.
Examples
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Adequate merit, also called condign merit, is merit in the strictest sense of the term; it requires proportion between service and reward.
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Having a string of MPs carted off to start some really condign sentences would be a satisfactory and welcome start to this particular programme.
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Perhaps the sight of a former colleague starting a condign sentence of ten years for misfeasance or neglect in a Ministerial Office might concentrate what politicians are pleased to call their minds on doing the job properly.
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They were savage - they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tootling, and "Rule Britannia" playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street-corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don't fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips.
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“May it please your excellency,” replied the Landamman, with perfect temper, “your own laws of chivalry declare, that if the stronger wrong the weaker, or the noble does injury to the less gentle, the very act levels distinctions between them, and the doer of an injury becomes bound to give condign satisfaction, of such kind as the wronged party shall demand.”
Note
The word 'condign' comes from a Latin word meaning 'worthy'.
