meritorious
/ˌmɛrɪˈtɔːrɪəs
/adjective
1Deserving reward or praise: a medal for meritorious conduct...
- The president praised teachers for their meritorious service in educating students, but declined to touch on teachers' complaints about their meager wages and poor living conditions.
- ‘Hutch’ was particularly interested in promoting the professional growth of deserving, meritorious young scientists.
- Obedience to the divine will is meritorious, and brings reward; disobedience is lethally punished.
Synonyms
praiseworthy, laudable, commendable, admirable, estimable, creditable, worthy, worthwhile, deserving, excellent, exemplary, good
1.1 Law, chiefly North American (Of an action or claim) likely to succeed on the merits of the case: the costs involved in civil litigation may prevent a meritorious appeal...
- And not every meritorious claim will be sufficiently lucrative to attract a lawyer willing to work on a contingent fee basis.
- And the Court has repeatedly refused to bend on this point - even when possibly meritorious claims of people on death row have been at stake.
- The ‘one petition’ rule cuts off meritless and meritorious claims alike, based merely on the sequence of filings.
Derivatives
meritoriously
- Students will pass their exams meritoriously.
- He was meritoriously advanced to Petty Officer 1st Class by the Chief of Navy Operations in a recent Pentagon ceremony.
- In a pre-emptive strike against the menacing spectre of boredom, I had decided I would write a letter to someone conducting themselves meritoriously.
meritoriousness
/ noun ...- The result is a tastier product that commands a higher price on its merits, not just its meritoriousness.
- Even though he is born in such a state, the quality of his meritoriousness will not be affected.
- Good works in the sense of meritoriousness are naturally an abomination to God.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'entitling a person to reward'): from late Latin meritorius (from merit- 'earned', from the verb mereri) + -ous.