Morality
Etymology
From Latin "moralis," a word Cicero coined to translate the Greek "ēthikos," building it on "mos, moris" (custom, habit). So the word literally points to “the ways of the community.” English acquired it through Old French "moralité" in the fourteenth century.
noun · /muh-RAL-i-tee/
A system of beliefs about what is right and wrong conduct, whether personal or shared by a group.
What it names
The lived, often inherited sense of right and wrong itself, as distinct from the disciplined study of it.
Example
His personal morality forbade the deal long before any law weighed in.
Related idea
Often used interchangeably with ethics, but a useful split holds: morality is the actual code people live by, while ethics is the reflective, theoretical examination of such codes — one is the terrain, the other the map-making.