Mores
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A set of moral norms or customs derived from generally accepted practices rather than written laws. plural, plural-only
"All of us seem to need some totalistic relationships in our lives. But to decry the fact that we cannot have only such relationships is nonsense. And to prefer a society in which the individual has holistic relationships with a few, rather than modular relationships with many, is to wish for a return to the imprisonment of the past — a past when individuals may have been more tightly bound to one another, but when they were also more tightly regimented by social conventions, sexual mores, political and religious restrictions."
- 2 plural of more form-of, plural
- 3 (sociology) the conventions that embody the fundamental values of a group wordnet
- 1 third-person singular simple present indicative of more form-of, indicative, present, singular, third-person
- 1 plural of More form-of, plural
Example
More examples"It can take years for people who migrate to a country to gain an understanding of the social and cultural mores of that country."
Etymology
From Latin mōrēs (“ways, character, morals”), the plural of mōs. Doublet of moeurs.
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.