A dense cluster-virtue, literally “love of honor”: an inner, almost instinctive pull to live up to one's dignity and obligations and to do right by family and community..
A dense cluster-virtue, literally “love of honor”: an inner, almost instinctive pull to live up to one's dignity and obligations and to do right by family and community.
Not honor as a possession but the active love and cultivation of honorable conduct. Unlike egoistic pride it includes humility (“every trace of self filtered out”); unlike philautia (self-love) it is outward-directed toward duty to others; broader than agape, spanning duty, dignity, and social obligation. Used to praise someone who quietly does the right thing.
philos “love” + timi “honor” = “love of honor.”
From Greek philos (“love, friend”) + timi (“honor”).
Attested from the classical period (philotimon used, sometimes ironically/negatively, by Plato); turned firmly positive by the early Christian era, with Paul's use of the verb φιλοτιμέομαι helping cement the modern sense. Now a central, self-consciously Greek cultural value.
Widely framed as “the most Greek virtue” and “untranslatable” (BBC; the Oxi Day Foundation campaign) — partly national-identity rhetoric. The core meaning (“love of honor,” conscientious duty) is well-documented and translatable in substance; classical usage was sometimes negative (“covetous of honor”).