What's the difference between rectitude and righteousness?

Rectitude


Definition:

  • (n.) Straightness.
  • (n.) Rightness of principle or practice; exact conformity to truth, or to the rules prescribed for moral conduct, either by divine or human laws; uprightness of mind; uprightness; integrity; honesty; justice.
  • (n.) Right judgment.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Yet the Tory promise of fiscal rectitude prevailed in England Alexander had been in charge of Labour’s election strategy, but he could not strategise a victory over a 20-year-old Scottish nationalist who has not yet taken her finals.
  • (2) When you have champions of financial rectitude such as the International Monetary Fund and OECD warning of the international risk of an "explosion of social unrest" and arguing for a new fiscal stimulus if growth continues to falter, it's hardly surprising that tensions in the cabinet over next month's spending review are spilling over.
  • (3) At 6ft 3in tall, the lanky Peck was a pillar of moral rectitude standing up for decency and tolerance.
  • (4) The use of this therapeutic group follows precise rules: far and near rectitude, normal binocular vision.
  • (5) Once in charge, they believe they are done with such childish things, and can’t conceive of circumstances in which they will be judged – especially when convinced of their own rectitude.
  • (6) But this is a crude morality tale that infers moral rectitude from market success.
  • (7) ‘The only guide to a man is his own conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.’” The church has recently voiced its disquiet over government reforms to the economy and welfare.
  • (8) It was then that we encountered an assortment of reputable commentators in the English broadsheets depart from the norms of rectitude and integrity that characterise their writing.
  • (9) Despite deep cuts, inflicting real hardship, he had to slip two years and delay fiscal rectitude until 2017-18, but to no great outcry.
  • (10) But to the incredulity of his own supporters, the chancellor sticks to the path of fiscal rectitude.
  • (11) Activists reported that the child benefit announcement, designed to demonstrate fiscal rectitude, went down especially badly on the doorstep in the Heywood and Middleton byelection campaign – where Ukip is looking like a potentially serious challenger to Labour next month.
  • (12) After all, this turns out to be the week that the scourge of capitalism John McDonnell lectures on fiscal rectitude, scourge of the lobby Jeremy Corbyn celebrates 32 years of rebellion by leading the party into a new era, and the moon turns red.
  • (13) health, work, generosity rectitude, authority, attractiveness, integrity etc., are, in their evaluation, influenced both by sex and by the hygienic behavior practiced.
  • (14) It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve.
  • (15) In cinemas, meanwhile, Captain America: the Winter Soldier – featuring a superhero who rivals Superman for square-jawed rectitude – just set a record for the month of April by scoring $96.2m (£58m) at the domestic box office on its opening weekend.
  • (16) The regulators’ decision to jettison the approach of the past three years of prioritising staffing levels ahead of financial rectitude has been prompted by the NHS’s increasingly frantic efforts to tackle the spiralling deficit which hospitals in England are racking up, projected to be £2.2bn by the end of March.
  • (17) For southern Europe as a whole, the single currency has proved to be a golden cage, forcing greater fiscal and monetary rectitude but removing the exchange rate as a critical cushion against unexpected shocks.
  • (18) There was no reform of the force; indeed political support for it, given personally from Thatcher, seems to have hardened Wright’s sense of rectitude.
  • (19) In case of complete palsies, the objective consists in obtaining primary gaze rectitude.
  • (20) But Labour, too, is hamstrung by its unnecessary fiscal rectitude bill, binding itself to cut the deficit in half in just four years, copying the Tories again.

Righteousness


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being righteous; holiness; purity; uprightness; rectitude.
  • (n.) A righteous act, or righteous quality.
  • (n.) The act or conduct of one who is righteous.
  • (n.) The state of being right with God; justification; the work of Christ, which is the ground of justification.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This may go some way to explaining why, even as his approval ratings fall off a cliff and some call for his impeachment, he sees no reason to course-correct, as he and a noisy caucus around him seem to become ever more self-righteous.
  • (2) [When he comes to a gig] it’s like a mate at school turning up.” Watson’s record of campaigns against phone hacking and establishment child abuse have also won him cross-party admiration and a public profile as a righteous crusader.
  • (3) Grass's new collection of poetry, Eintagsfliegen , published in Germany last week, describes Vanunu as a "role model and hero of our time" who "hoped to serve his country by helping to bring the truth to light", and calls on Israelis to "recognise ... as righteous" the man "who remained loyal to his country all those years", according to German reports .
  • (4) They – we – had come by bus, plane, train, car and hitch-hiker's thumb to demonstrate to ourselves and a watching world that there was a better, more righteous America than the Birmingham of Bull Connor who had set the dogs and fire hoses on black children.
  • (5) The Tea Party represents a serious strand in American public life – old-world fundamentalist in its exclusivity, self-righteousness and religious zeal.
  • (6) They are so convinced of their righteousness they cannot admit their faults.
  • (7) Skylight gives voice to private enterprise’s self-righteous hostility towards those who work in the public services.
  • (8) The FBI are sceptical that Pyongyang was responsible, and the government there denies that it had any involvement, even if it describes the hack as “a righteous deed”.
  • (9) With it would come “the Mother of Planes, which would hover over space for up to a year and then swoop down to rescue righteous black Muslims from the great white wasteland”.
  • (10) They converted and started to insult us, saying we do not believe in the oneness of Allah because of our love for saints.” Every Pakistani knows these preaching, self-righteous conservatives ... but you never expect them to indulge in violence Nadeem Farooq Paracha Like so many others, the Malik family were helped along in their religious journey by the experience of living as guest workers in the oil-rich Arab world.
  • (11) For many, fantasy is typified by The Lord of the Rings ; Miéville worked up a righteous fury against Tolkien's "cod-Wagnerian pomposity, his small-minded and reactionary love for hierarchical status-quos", calling him "the wen on the arse of fantasy literature" and setting out to "lance the boil".
  • (12) Righteous indignation was tweeted and retweeted, celebrities piled on the pressure, pundits sharpened their quills.
  • (13) Increasingly, the paranoid defensiveness of the zealots cannot be reconciled with the righteous anger of those who believe every superlative performance must be suspect.
  • (14) True, as we were reminded last week, members of the EDL have miraculously survived all such conditioning; equally, these extremists now risk being righteously snubbed in Mens' Socks.
  • (15) It is, I imagine, the same sentiment a potential jihadist feels when he or she foolishly believes that they’re being righteously called upon to fight for the creation of an Islamic state, as if that might fix what are largely personal troubles.
  • (16) A muted reaction works better than the self-righteous explosion they are sometimes hankering after.
  • (17) Typical of the PC brigade - one Iraqi man gets beaten to death and they are down on you like a ton of righteous liberal bricks!
  • (18) In its proper context – of a US puffed up with righteousness and seized by Islamophobia – I think Homeland is a revolutionary piece of work, merely by having the courage to tell a story from the perspective of two characters who are questioning whether US policy in the Middle East is right.
  • (19) Thanks to recent appearances on Question Time and Newsnight , it is popular – righteous, even – to loathe David Starkey.
  • (20) It was a bad business but not as bad as the self-righteous Carswell or the tax-shy Tory press made it sound at the time.