Mores

Definition: social customs and norms

This is pronounced “more-ays,” as in “social mores” (that sounds different when you say it out loud…)

It’s Latin, and it’s from the same root word from which we get “morality.” However, the word doesn’t imply the moral rightness or wrongness of anything, it just refers to what’s normally accepted in society.

Why I Looked It Up

I don’t remember, but I must have heard it rather than read it, because I literally wrote down “morays” in my notes.

Whenever I saw “social mores” in writing, I must have been pronouncing it phonetically in my head.