highmindedness means quality of being high-minded. It carries an Arena rating of 1344, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, highmindedness ranks #4,379 of 13,218 for Most Malleable Words, #5,572 of 13,218 for Most Beautiful Words, #7,654 of 13,218 for Most Sublime Words, #7,706 of 13,218 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
Why “highmindedness” is a great word
The quality of having noble, honorable, or elevated principles and feelings. From the English compound adjective 'high-minded' (meaning having lofty principles) + the noun-forming suffix '-ness' (indicating a state or quality). Unlike 'arrogance,' which suggests a contemptuous superiority, or 'humility,' which denotes a modest self-view, highmindedness implies a principled elevation that looks up to an ideal. It is the magistrate's resignation on a point of integrity, the quiet refusal to indulge a salacious rumor, the private adherence to a costly ideal when expediency beckons—a fortress of the spirit maintained not for show, but because one could not live within any lesser walls.
Etymology
From high-minded + -ness.
noun
- Quality of being high-minded.“It was a Victorian concept and its life force perished with the Victorian Age. Victorian in pomp and grandeur, Victorian in the public-school code of its Government, its Philistinism, its middle-class standards of virtue, its creaming of the large Victorian families for its administrators and soldiers, Victorian in the commercialism that mingled with highmindedness in Anglo-Indian relations, Victo”
Words closest in meaning
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