honest
Before "honest" meant truthful, it meant held-in-honor — respectable, decent, of good public standing. From Latin honestus, from honos (honor, public regard). The truth-telling sense is recent; the older sense survives in honest work, honest broker, honest to god.
Honesty in the modern sense is about speech — truthful, free from deceit, performed sentence-by-sentence. The word didn't start there. Latin honestus, "regarded with honor," from honos (honor, public regard, repute). To be honest, in the older sense, was to be held-in-honor: respectable, of good name. The honesty was a position you occupied among others, not a property of what you said.
The truth-telling sense crept in late, sharing the word with the older sense for centuries before pulling ahead. The older sense survives as residue: honest work, honest living, honest broker, honest to god — all about standing, not statement. Honesty wasn't first about what you say. It was about how you stand.
- honor, honour — direct from honos; the standing itself
- honorable — fit for honor; deserving of public regard
- honorary — held in honor without payment or duty
- honorific — a title that confers honor; the verbal marker of standing
- honorarium — a fee paid not for the work but for the honor
- dishonor, dishonest — the negation cluster; loss of standing, loss of regard
- honnête homme — 17th-c. French social ideal — the cultivated gentleman; the older sense preserved as a cultural type