Noun

Singular fidelity

Plural fidelities

fidelity (plural fidelities)

1. faithfulness to one's duties
2. accuracy, or exact correspondence to some given quality or fact
3. loyalty, especially to one's spouse
4. the degree to which a system accurately reproduces an input.

Derived terms

• fidelitous
• fidelity bond
• high fidelity

Related terms

• faith

Antonyms

• infidelity

Fidelity is the quality of being faithful or loyal. Its original meaning regarded duty to a lord or a king, in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty. Both derive from the Latin word fidēlis (A III adjective), meaning "faithful or loyal"

In modern human relationships, the term can refer to sexual monogamy. In western culture this often means adherence to marriage vows, or of promises of exclusivity or monogamy, and an absence of adultery. However, some people do not equate fidelity in personal relationships with sexual or emotional monogamy. (For example, see polyamory and Open marriage.) Often, however, females in Shakespeare are associated with it in a negative sense, such as "She is with little fidelity". For example, Bertram accuses Helena of having "little fidelity" in All's Well That Ends Well.

Fidelity also denotes how accurate a copy is to its source. For example, a worn gramophone record will have a lower fidelity than one in good condition, and a recording made by a low budget record company in the early 20th century is likely to have significantly less audio fidelity than a good modern recording. In the 1950s, the terms "high fidelity" or "hi-fi" were popularized for equipment and recordings designed for more accurate sound reproduction, while "lo-fi" music aims for "authenticity" over perfect production. Similarly in electronics, fidelity refers to the correspondence of the output signal to the input signal, rather than sound.

In the fields of scientific modelling and simulation, fidelity refers to the degree to which a model or simulation reproduces the state and behaviour of a real world object, feature or condition. Fidelity is therefore a measure of the realism of a model or simulation. Simulation fidelity has also been described in the past as 'degree of similarity'.

The computer age has spawned the term Wi-Fi in reference to certain groups of wireless electronic devices. While the term Wi-Fi has been popularly taken to be an abbreviation of 'wireless fidelity', Wi-Fi is in fact a commercial brand owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, and has nothing to do with fidelity as a concept.

Fidelity, or faithfulness, is a notion that, at its most abstract level, implies a truthful connection to a source or sources. Its original meaning dealt with loyalty and attentiveness to one's duty to a lord or a king, in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty. Both derive from the Latin word fidēlis (A III adjective), meaning "faithful or loyal".

Sourced

• No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
  • Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).

• This was her finest role and the hardest one to play. Choosing between heaven and a ridiculous fidelity, preferring oneself to eternity or losing oneself in God is the age-old tragedy in which each must play his part.
  • Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), "Absurd Creation".

• The joker in the deck of lesbian fidelity is female vanity: no woman of fifty is going to undress in front of a woman of twenty no matter how much she might lust for her.
  • Florence King, The Florence King Reader (1995).

• There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
  • Edgar Allan Poe, "The Black Cat" (1843).

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Wed Nov 18 23:38:27 2009