DEMERIT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Demerit

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/dimˈɛrət/ Listen

noun

Demerit n.

That which one merits or deserves, either of good or ill; desert. (Obs.) "By many benefits and demerits whereby they obliged their adherents, (they) acquired this reputation."

That which deserves blame; ill desert; a fault; a vice; misconduct; the opposite of merit. "They see no merit or demerit in any man or any action." "Secure, unless forfeited by any demerit or offense."

The state of one who deserves ill.

verb

Demerit v. t.

To deserve; said in reference to both praise and blame. (Obs.) "If I have demerited any love or thanks." "Executed as a traitor... as he well demerited."

To depreciate or cry down. (R.)

Demerit v. i. To deserve praise or blame.

See images of 'Demerit'

Etymology of 'Demerit'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Demerit" Quotes from Famous Books

... fortune is rapid. Such is the case when, either on merit or demerit, great patronage is bestowed. Henry's violin had often charmed, to a welcome forgetfulness of his insignificance, an effeminate lord; or warmed with ideas of honour the head of a duke, whose heart ...

— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... winneth the happier age Which by demerit halteth short of end; Yet must this Law of Love reign King of all Before the ...

— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... and one of her hind legs cutt offe, lastly my corne in Mile Meadow much damnified with horses, they being staked upon it; it was wheat; All wch injurys, as they do sauor of enemy so I hope they will be looked upon by this honored court according to their natuer and judged according to there demerit, that so your poor suppliant may find some redrese; who is bold ...

— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... Samuel Rutherford's is just another great name to be added to the noble roll of saintly penitents we all have in our minds taken out of Scripture and Church History. Neither great Saintliness nor great service was forfeited by this penitent; and he is constantly telling us how the extreme of demerit and the extreme of gracious treatment met in him; how he had at one time destroyed himself, and how God had helped him; how, where sin had abounded, grace had abounded much more. In one of the very ...

— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... eyes of Louis XIV go their rounds at every moment, "on arising or retiring, on passing into his apartments, in his gardens,. . . nobody escapes, even those who hoped they were not seen; it was a demerit with some, and the most distinguished, not to make the court their ordinary sojourn, to others to come to it but seldom, and certain disgrace to those who never, or nearly never, came."[2130] Henceforth, the main thing, for the first personages in the ...

— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

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