Ignoble

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(pronounced ig-noh-bul)  adjective

Definition

1. of humble rank or social status; of the common people. 2. not noble in character, quality, or intention; shameful; low or dishonorable; base; mean.

Main Example

• Did you know that measles, once the deadliest of diseases and which killed over two million people each year before the advent of vaccines, is witnessing a resurgence, especially in Europe? The primary reason: misguided parents who harbor irrational and unscientific fears of vaccinations. Exacerbating the situation in Italy is that nation’s new populist government which, for its political ends, is debating whether to make vaccinations voluntary. According to the BBC, the new Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has been declaring ignobly in front of large audiences: “Children cannot be left out of school simply because they’ve not been vaccinated.” But, before you cast aspersions on the Italians, consider this: right here in America, we had a prominent lawmaker--U.S. Senator Rand Paul (a medical doctor at that)--who was unashamedly propagating anti-vaccine views until quite recently.

Workplace Examples

• As you know, the great Adam Smith said that commerce and finance should be grand and noble enterprises. So, isn’t it ignoble of a credit card company to jack up a customer’s interest rate to usurious levels--over 29%--if he or she delays payment of so much as a $20 utility bill?
• When I tell my coworkers that I check my horoscope every morning, a lot of them look shocked...as if there is something improper or ignoble about that.

Other Examples

• a colleague saying: “Following tradition, my father willed all the family property to me--the sole male heir. But I feel it would be ignoble of me not to share the wealth with my two sisters.”
• Enron’s downfall partly a result of CFO Andy Fastow’s ignoble ends; somebody’s ignoble feelings of envy or hostility toward another; the career of Darleen Druyun, a top Pentagon weapons buyer, coming to an ignoble end after she was found to have favored Boeing on deals worth billions of dollars in return for favors to her family
• during his Wall Street investigation, then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer discovering that some top analysts were routinely and ignobly recommending stocks that they privately regarded as “junk”
• the ignoble doings of some judges at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics: allegedly, a French judge in the pairs figure skating event was pressured into favoring Russia over Canada in exchange for a Russian judge endorsing France in ice dancing
• In the final stages of WWII, as U.S. forces steadily neared the Japanese mainland, there was unbelievably heavy loss of life during each successive battle for a Pacific island such as Saipan, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima. Why? Because the Japanese army would fight to the last man! In their culture, surrendering to the enemy is an ignoble deed, no matter how hopeless the situation--there is no such thing as “surrender with honor.”

© 2019 V.J. Singal
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