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MORAL (noun / adjective)
As a noun, a moral is the lesson learned from a story – often used in the expression “the moral of the story.”
The plural form, morals, has a different meaning. It refers to a person’s standards of determining right and wrong behavior:
- The doctor refused to perform an abortion because it was against her morals.
- He has no morals whatsoever – he’ll do anything and everything to get rich.
The adjective moral refers to things related to ethics (matters of right/wrong):
- If you know that a child is being abused, you have a moral obligation to inform the police.
- It is often used with moral obligation/responsibility/duty
MORALE (noun)
The noun morale is completely different!
First of all, there is a pronunciation difference:
- moral: MOR – al
- morale: mor – ALE
Morale means the state of spirit/emotions of a group of people – their general confidence and cheerfulness.
- If a sports team has high morale, it means the members of the team are feeling good and optimistic.
- If morale is low among employees of a company, it means the employees are feeling negative and not motivated.