rightness

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Conformity with reason or justice

Nouns

1. rightness, right, what ought to be, what should be, fitness, propriety; due[ness], rightfulness; morality, probity, honor, virtue, lawfulness; dictate of conscience. See agreement.

2. right, privilege, prerogative, title, claim, grant; franchise, license; human or civil rights, bill of rights; suffrage, woman's rights, feminism; affirmative action; executive privilege; states' rights; right to life, right to die, right to work, etc. See permission, possession, freedom.

3. [civil, women's, etc. rights] activist; suffragist, feminist, suffragette (archaic).

4. correctness, accuracy, precision; exactness, truth.

Verbs

1. be right or just, stand to reason.

2. right, make right, correct, remedy, see justice done, play fair, do justice to, recompense, hold the scales even, give everyone his due.

Adjectives

1. right, upright, good; rightful, just, equitable, due, square, fit[ting], meet, seemly, reasonable, suitable, becoming; decorous, creditable; allowable, lawful, legal, legitimate, licit, in the right.

2. right, correct, proper, precise, exact, accurate, true. Slang, right on, on the nose.

Adverbs — rightly, justly, fairly, correctly; in justice, in equity, in reason, without distinction of persons, on even terms; just so.

Phrases — a right sometimes sleeps, but it never dies; rights are lost by disuse; two wrongs don't make a right.

Quotations — I had rather be right than be president (Henry Clay), Natural rights is simple nonsense ( Jeremy Bentham), We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ( Thomas Jefferson and others), There is no such thing as rights anyhow. It is a question of whether you can put it over. In any legal sense or practical sense, whatever is, is "a right" (Clarence Darrow).

Antonyms, see wrong, injustice.

II

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. The quality or state of being morally sound: good, goodness, morality, probity, rectitude, righteousness, uprightness, virtue, virtuousness. See RIGHT. 2. The moral quality of a course of action: ethic (used in plural), ethicality, ethicalness, morality, propriety, righteousness, rightfulness. See RIGHT. 3. Freedom from error: accuracy, accurateness, correctness, exactitude, exactness, preciseness, precision. See CORRECT.