means the system of principles distinguishing right from wrong conduct, and the sense of which actions are good or bad.

from From Latin moralis, meaning 'relating to manners or character,' a word Cicero is said to have coined to translate the Greek ethikos when he needed a Latin term for the Greek idea of ethics. Its root is mos (plural mores), meaning 'custom' or 'habit' — so buried in the word is the quiet admission that morality began as simply what people are in the habit of doing. It reached English in the late Middle Ages through Old French moralité.