merit

Meanings

Noun

• A claim to commendation or a reward.
• A mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence.
• Something deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.
• The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence and contributes to the person's growth towards enlightenment.
• Usually in the plural form the merits: the substantive rightness or wrongness of a legal argument, a lawsuit, etc., as opposed to technical matters such as the admissibility of evidence or points of legal procedure; the overall good or bad quality, or rightness or wrongness, of some other thing.
• The quality or state of deserving retribution, whether reward or punishment.

Verb

• To deserve, to earn.
• To be deserving or worthy.
• To reward.

Origin

• The noun is derived from Middle English merit, merite, from Anglo-Norman merit, merite, Old French merite ("moral worth, reward; merit") (modern French mérite), from Latin meritum ("that which one deserves, deserts; benefit, reward, merit; service; kindness; importance, value, worth; blame, demerit, fault; grounds, reason"), neuter of meritus, perfect passive participle of mereō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mer- ("to allot, assign"). The English word is probably cognate with Ancient Greek μέρος ("component, part; portion, share; destiny, fate, lot") and cognate with Old Occitan merit.
• The verb is derived from Middle French meriter, Old French meriter ("to deserve, merit") (modern French mériter), from merite: see further above. The word is cognate with Italian meritare ("to deserve, merit; to be worth; to earn"), Latin meritāre ("to earn regularly; to serve as a soldier"), Spanish meritar ("to deserve, merit; to earn").