What does it mean if someone shows fidelity? This article will teach you all you need to know about the meaning of fidelity and how to use it.
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Kevin
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February 2, 2022
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Common Questions
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According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Collins English Dictionary, the word fidelity is a noun that means retaining a given quality or being faithful.
Fidelity is most often used to refere to the loyalty one has to a given person or organization. This is often used to describe partners in a relationship or marriage. Fidelity is four syllables — fi-del-i-ty — and the pronunciation of fidelity is fɪˈdeləti.
What Are Translations of Fidelity?
Different languages other than English also have words that mean fidelity.
When you are looking at this list of translations of fidelity, you might notice that many of these translations both look and sound similar to the word fidelity. These are called cognates, which are formed when two words from different languages have the same root or language of origin.
How many of these translations of fidelity do you know?
- Russian: ве́рность (fem.)
- German: Redlichkeit (fem.)
- Turkish: sadakat
- Swedish: trohet, plikttrohet
- Sorani: ڕاستگۆیی
- Hungarian: hűség
- Cherokee: ᎪᎯᏳᏗ (gohiyudi)
- Italian: fedeltà (fem.)
- Portuguese: fidelidade (fem.), lealdade (fem.)
- Bulgarian: преданост (fem.)
- Arabic: ولاء – إخلاص
- Romanian: fidelitate (fem.)
- Malay: kesetiaan
- Icelandic: tryggð (fem.)
- Galician: fidelidade (fem.)
- Finnish: uskollisuus, lojaalius
- Spanish: fidelidad
What Is the Origin of the Word Fidelity?
The word fidelity has been used since the 15th century Middle English fidelite and comes from the Old French and Middle French fidélité. The French word comes from the Latin fidēlitāt and Latin fidēlitās, from the Latin fidēlis.
These have roots in fidē-, the stem of fidēs meaning trust, belief, or faith. These roots stem from the Proto-Indo-European bʰidʰ-, which is the zero-grade of Proto-Indo-European bʰeydʰ. These Indo-European roots also include bheidh.
How Can the Word Fidelity Be Used in a Sentence?
Fidelity is a very versatile word that can be used in many different sentences. Using a word like fidelity in a sentence can be a great way to explain your understanding of this word’s definition. Take a look at the many example sentences listed below, and see if you can come up with examples of your own!
Spousal Fidelity
He had a high fidelity to his spouse and an obligation to signal to the world that he would never take on a lover. Collins kept a strict observance of promises and never participated in extramarital affairs.
A Director’s Fidelity
The editor wanted to use digital music, but the movie’s director had a strange fidelity to the sound quality of cassettes. While he assured him he could make it sound like a worn gramophone record in good condition, the director wouldn’t budge on the sound quality and ended up going with a low-budget record company in the city of London.
Fidelity at a University
The males had fidelity to the females at Princeton University, a behavior not seen since the early 20th century. This quality of faithfulness impresses the women.
Electronic Fidelity
The new chip’s images still lost fidelity over time since the ions flowing in memristors scattered. The fidelity standards for unalloyed materials and the resulting computations were impossible for certain components with a lower fidelity rating. The electronic system was tricky to form.
Fidelity in an Open Marriage
While some people thought they lacked fidelity, they found that their open marriage actually gave them great fidelity. They each had the executive power to sleep with whomever they wanted and always came back to one another.
What Are Synonyms of the Word Fidelity?
Fidelity might not always be the perfect word to describe the type of faithfulness you are talking about. If you are looking for a word similar to fidelity, take a look at this list of synonyms for fidelity from Power Thesaurus.
You can also use synonyms to avoid repeating the same word multiple times to add color and pizzazz to your writing and speech. Which one of these synonyms is your favorite? Can you come up with more synonyms of your own?
- accuracy
- adherence
- adhesion
- allegiance
- attachment
- authenticity
- closeness
- commitment
- constancy
- correctness
- dedication
- dependability
- devotedness
- devotion
- devoutness
- duty
- exactitude
- exactness
- faith
- faithfulness
- fealty
- homage
- honesty
- incorruptibility
- inner beauty
- integrity
- loyalty
- naturalism
- obedience
- piety
- preciseness
- precision
- probity
- realism
- reliability
- scrupulousness
- sincerity
- staunchness
- steadfastness
- strictness
- troth
- trueness
- trustiness
- trustworthiness
- truth
- truthfulness
- veracity
- veridicality
- verism
- verity
What Are Antonyms of the Word Fidelity?
Power Thesaurus provides a list of many words that are antonyms of fidelity. These words have the opposite meaning of fidelity and can be helpful to know when discussing topics related to fidelity.
- adultery
- affair
- amour
- betrayal
- bit on the side
- breach of trust
- business
- cheating
- confusion
- corruption
- crime
- cuckoldry
- deceit
- deceitfulness
- deception
- defection
- disaffection
- dishonesty
- dishonor
- dishonour
- disloyalty
- double standard
- double standards
- double-dealing
- duplicity
- evil
- extramarital relations
- extramarital sex
- faithlessness
- fake
- falseness
- falsity
- fickleness
- fooling around
- fornication
- hanky-panky
- inadherence
- inconstancy
- indirection
- infidelity
- injustice
- lying
- perfidiousness
- perfidy
- treachery
- treason
- unfaithfulness
- wavering
Conclusion
Overall, the word fidelity means faithfulness or loyalty to a person, organization, or belief. You can also use this term in electronics to refer to accuracy or precision.
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