Definition Essay: What Is Honesty?

What is honesty? Merriam-Webster defines it as “a fairness and straightforwardness of conduct,” or more simply “the quality of being fair and truthful.” The online dictionary defines it as not only “truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness,” but also “freedom from deceit or fraud.” Dishonesty, on the other hand, is defined as “a lack of honesty or integrity: a disposition to defraud or deceive – to lie, cheat, or steal” according to Merriam-Webster and the online dictionary. While honesty involves the avoidance of lying and committing crimes, it is also the discipline of telling the truth, no matter what. A lie is still a lie, whether it’s a blatant act to deceive, through omission or non-admission of some kind, or even a half-truth. There are numerous categories, types, and examples of deviant behavior ranging from minor non-illegal cases of …show more content…
The following deviances pertain to the academic, professional, and personal realm: plagiarism, fabrication (lying), cheating, deception, theft, and forgery. Plagiarism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the act of committing literary theft and presenting it as a new and original idea or product derived from an existing source; to steal and pass of the ideas or words of another as one’s own without crediting the source” and by the online dictionary as “an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author’s work as one’s own as by not crediting the original author; a piece of writing or other work reflecting such unauthorized use or imitation.” There are three important points to recognize in these definitions.