Category:Loyalty

Loy"al*ty, n. Etym: [Cf. F. loyaute. See Loyal, and cf. Legality.]

Defn: The state or quality of being loyal; fidelity to a superior, or to duty, love, etc. He had such loyalty to the king as the law required. Clarendon. Not withstanding all the subtle bait With which those Amazons his love still craved, To his one love his loyalty he saved. Spenser.

Note: "Loyalty . . . expresses, properly, that fidelity which one owes according to law, and does not necessarily include that attachment to the royal person, which, happily, we in England have been able further to throw into the word." Trench.

Syn. -- Allegiance; fealty. See Allegiance.