What's the difference between decency and dignity?

Decency


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being decent, suitable, or becoming, in words or behavior; propriety of form in social intercourse, in actions, or in discourse; proper formality; becoming ceremony; seemliness; hence, freedom from obscenity or indecorum; modesty.
  • (n.) That which is proper or becoming.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This is not some sophisticated, Westminstery battle, but a life-and-death, misery-or-decency choice about the very basics of life for hundreds of thousands of older British people.
  • (2) "Throughout America, the Queen stands for decency and civility."
  • (3) Yes, Goldsmith is to be held in contempt: a man of decency would have rejected this gutter strategy.
  • (4) "Sir Alex Ferguson had the decency to phone me to let me know that he was going in another direction after I applied for the reserve team post at Manchester United in 2003.
  • (5) As Obama put it in her speech today, this isn’t about politics, “it’s about basic human decency”.
  • (6) Having been born in Belgium he didn't start from a belief in the inferiority of other countries, but he loved Britain for the security it offered his family and the gentle decency of our nation."
  • (7) She is talking to Dizzee Rascal, who at least has the decency to goon around for the camera.
  • (8) If Whittingdale had any honour, any mercy, and any basic human decency, he would murder David Attenborough himself today, in his bed, to spare him any further suffering.
  • (9) But we can all probably do without Fifa's "fair play in marketing" lectures, which clothe commercial ruthlessness in the language of sporting decency, apparently oblivious to the impression given by wallpapering every stadium with signs that push BP or declare "We proudly accept only Visa".
  • (10) Neither the Congress nor evaluators have clear concepts of what constitutes a life of decency and dignity for the chronically dependent.
  • (11) At 6ft 3in tall, the lanky Peck was a pillar of moral rectitude standing up for decency and tolerance.
  • (12) Austerity as we know it – where basic human decency is sacrificed to solutions that purport to be cheaper but turn out not to be – actually started before the austerity narrative.
  • (13) Decency is one of those lines.” Erickson also told reporters: “I don’t want to put words in [Trump’s] mouth and I hate using the label misogynist because I think its used too much but he’s suggesting a woman as a lady asked him a question and did so because it was her time of the month.
  • (14) I hope David Cameron has the decency to invite you around for coffee or lunch as Tony Blair and David Blunkett did once I was out.
  • (15) A former director general of the prison service, Martin Narey, who now has a contract with the firm as a consultant on decency in G4S prisons, says he was once vehemently opposed to private-sector involvement in the prison service before he was appointed in 1998.
  • (16) Few would challenge the Camerons' fundamental decency.
  • (17) Looking first at the smaller politics, the attack by Fallon on Miliband’s decency and fitness for No 10 was a risky play by the Tories.
  • (18) In Uncommon Danger, the representatives of communism and what Zaleshoff calls "moderate radicalism" but Kenton himself would probably think of as basic human decency are pitted against the agents of capital and fascism: Balterghen, Saridza and their many cronies.
  • (19) But the depth of this tragedy also drew out the decency and determination of our nation.
  • (20) Fry wrote: "I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathsome and inhumane.

Dignity


Definition:

  • (n.) The state of being worthy or honorable; elevation of mind or character; true worth; excellence.
  • (n.) Elevation; grandeur.
  • (n.) Elevated rank; honorable station; high office, political or ecclesiastical; degree of excellence; preferment; exaltation.
  • (n.) Quality suited to inspire respect or reverence; loftiness and grace; impressiveness; stateliness; -- said of //en, manner, style, etc.
  • (n.) One holding high rank; a dignitary.
  • (n.) Fundamental principle; axiom; maxim.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights are absolutely fundamental to the European Union.
  • (2) All the personality, dignity and humanity of a person are devastated by this torture.
  • (3) Но поразительно, что ((аристос)) и партию human dignity в сегодняшней России представляет не фигура солженицынского или манделовского типа, а бывший миллиардер.
  • (4) He chose to be a man, not an artist, in this painting, and to claim no dignity except that which everyone deserves.
  • (5) And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations – to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God.
  • (6) From 1985 to June 1989 diagnostic tumour resections have been performed on 37 kidney tumours with unknown dignity following the preoperative imaging techniques.
  • (7) They’re angry because they can’t afford to send their kids to college so they can’t retire with dignity.” One of the signs that voters still lack confidence in the US job market is the labor participation rate, which in 2015 reached its lowest point in 38 years.
  • (8) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
  • (9) "It was not just about toppling the old regime but about building a state where people can have freedom, dignity, rule of law and social justice."
  • (10) Indonesia’s largest Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama, in February described gay lifestyles as perverted and a desecration of human dignity.
  • (11) The democratically elected usually manage to leave with some dignity intact – even if in Britain the removal is often criticised for its humiliating haste.
  • (12) In this retrospective study the findings of visual acuity, visual field and papillae of 204 patients operated on the cerebrum were determined and the significance of the morphological factors (position and size of the defect of the cerebral parenchyma, extent of the cerebral ventricles, degree of the cortical atrophy, influence of dignity) for the persisting ophthalmological deficiency phenomena was pointed out.
  • (13) My hope is that those who are at the Games take these words and let them echo, with grace, courage and dignity, in whatever way they choose to, because it will make a difference to those participating, and to those watching.
  • (14) The analysis shows that the core of nursing can be described as helping the patients either to manage their daily living or to die with dignity, and it consists of three stages which continually interact.
  • (15) From campaigner to prisoner to President to global hero, Nelson Mandela will always be remembered for his dignity, integrity and his values of equality and justice.
  • (16) For here we see the depravity to which man can sink, the barbarity that unfolds when we begin to see our fellow human beings as somehow less than us, less worthy of dignity and life; we see how evil can, for a moment in time, triumph when good people do nothing."
  • (17) After suffering a severe form of ME which left her bedridden and unable to speak or feed herself for all of her adolescent and adult life, she had decided she was never going to recover, and wanted to ensure her life would end before total degeneration robbed her of all dignity.
  • (18) Palliative care must be based on a philosophy that acknowledges the inherent worth and dignity of each person.
  • (19) They’d certainly believe that they had stolen this woman’s dignity.
  • (20) Having started out preening (he tells a former colleague that he lives "the life of Riley"), he ends up howling alone on a small rock, the decision to adorn himself with a beautiful young wife having stolen his stature, robbed him of his dignity.