Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Made or carried out in good faith; sincere.
- adjective Authentic; genuine: synonym: authentic.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In or with good faith; without fraud or deception; with sincerity; genuinely: frequently used as a compound adjective in the sense of honest; genuine; not make-believe.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- In or with good faith; without fraud or deceit; real or really; actual or actually; genuine or genuinely.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective In
good faith . - adjective
Genuine ; notcounterfeit .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective not counterfeit or copied
- adjective undertaken in good faith
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Latin bonā fidē : bonā, feminine ablative of bonus, good + fidē, ablative of fidēs, faith.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From the Latin bonā fidē (“in good faith”) which is the ablative of bona fidēs (“good faith”).
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bona fide.
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
sionnach commented on the word bona fide
good dog.
July 14, 2008
biocon commented on the word bona fide
The plural of "bona fide" (fem. ablative case of a 5th declension noun), which literally means "with good faith," is "bonis fidebus" (cf. bona fides).
December 4, 2011