Definition of "honesty"

There’s no trust,No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]

O give me your plain dealing Fellows / Who never from honesty shrink; / Not thinking on all they shou’d tell us, / But telling us all that they think.

1787, George Colman, Junior, Inkle and Yarico, London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson, Act 2, p. 45

1891, Oscar Wilde, The Duchess of Padua

To those who knew her and to the greatly enlarged circle who were electrified by her last poems and sudden death, she had come to signify the specific honesties and risks of the poet’s condition.

1965, George Steiner, “Dying is an Art”, in Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literature and the Inhuman, New York: Atheneum, published 1986, page 295

Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene iii]

Fellowes in armes faithfull and valiant, / I thanke you for your paines and honeſties, [...]

1607, [Barnabe Barnes], The Divils Charter: A Tragædie Conteining the Life and Death of Pope Alexander the Sixt. […], London: Printed by G[eorge] E[ld] for Iohn Wright, […], Act V, scene i

[...] that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], 1 Timothy 2:2

[...] spend all I have; only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford’s wife [...]

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene ii]

[...] Oh, these vild women, / That are so ill preservers of men’s honours, / They cannot govern their own honesties!

c. 1625, John Fletcher, The Fair Maid of the Inn, Act V, Scene 1, in Alexander Dyce (editor), The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, New York: Appleton, 1890, Volume 2, p. 669

Various measures were taken to avoid it, most popular being the suspension of certain herbs and tree branches over the doorways of dwellings and stables. Commonly used greenery were tansy, honesty, garlic, St. John's Wort, mountain ash, roadside verbena.

1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 271

She thought a minute, then stepped nimbly back into her cottage; and what she came out with at last was, a sprig of dry leaves, round as shillings, white as paper, quivering on a few thin stalks that looked ready to snap.It was honesty.

2002, Sarah Waters, Fingersmith, Virago Press (2005), page 156