Word of the Day
June 18, 2026
Mores
The fixed, morally binding customs and conventions of a community; the established moral norms a society treats as essential to its character.
From Latin 'mores,' the plural of 'mos,' meaning custom, manner, or habit.
Usage Examples
- A republic survives on its mores as much as on its written laws.
- Honesty and personal responsibility are mores that sustain self-government.
- When a community's mores erode, formal rules alone cannot hold it together.
From the Show
Francis de Geus drew a line between the formal rules written in the Constitution and the informal rules, the shared moral customs and virtues, that hold a free republic together. His insistence that citizens themselves must embody those customs ran through the Liberty Toastmasters table topics in the June 18, 2026 discussion of engaged citizenship.