amoral
amoral Lexical Profile
amoral Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.
"The critic argued that the protagonist was not actively evil, but rather an amoral opportunist who viewed every relationship purely as a business transaction."
Outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply; neither moral nor immoral.
"Science as a method of inquiry is fundamentally amoral, though the ways in which society applies scientific discoveries carry profound ethical weight."
Word Nuance & Usage
Do not confuse 'amoral' with 'immoral': 'amoral' describes something or someone lacking any sense of morality or outside the sphere of moral judgment (such as a newborn infant or natural law), whereas 'immoral' describes someone who knows the difference between right and wrong but deliberately chooses to do wrong.
• Rhymes for amoral
Word Origin & Etymology
Coined in the late 19th century by combining the Greek privative prefix 'a-' ('without' or 'not') with 'moral', from Latin 'moralis' ('pertaining to manners or morals').