Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Accountability   Listen
noun
Accountability  n.  The state of being accountable; liability to be called on to render an account; the obligation to bear the consequences for failure to perform as expected; accountableness. "The awful idea of accountability."
Synonyms: answerability, answerableness






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Accountability" Quotes from Famous Books



... he has no trouble. The 'independent' man soon goes out of the door. If he be a manufacturer, he does not allow his employes to help themselves to his stores and material. He keeps, if he is a sensible man, his stock under lock and key, and exacts a rigid accountability in their use. What is to prevent the introduction of just such a system of accountability in the family economy? 'Why,' say many housekeepers, 'we would not dare to lock up our butter, and eggs, and flour, and sugar; we could not keep a girl a day if we doled out our stores and held our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that I am at all light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking forward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that direction. Being of age now and having taken the step I have taken, I consider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but Ada being still a ward of the court, I don't yet ask her to renew our engagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself once more and we shall both be in very different worldly circumstances, I believe. If you ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... been expended upon the barrel prior and subsequent to the work done by the roller, all of which has been lost through his remissness. Besides, he is paid so liberally for his work, that he can well afford to stand the loss. This system of accountability runs through the entire work, and tends greatly to the promotion of care and fidelity in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... madness and crime. Few men deserve our respect and gratitude like these. But let them be cheered by remembering that in the great world outside the hospital there are still elements of worthiness and nobility. Wealth was never more wisely liberal, talents were never held to stricter accountability, genius has never been more united with pure and high aims, than in the Loyal States to-day. The descendants of "those much-enduring men and women of colonial times" have not shown themselves altogether "incapable of toil and exposure." From offices and counting-rooms, from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... to the practice of rigid economy. The objects of expenditure should be limited in number, as far as this may be practicable, and the appropriations necessary to carry them into effect ought to be disbursed under the strictest accountability. Enlightened economy does not consist in the refusal to appropriate money for constitutional purposes essential to the defense, progress, and prosperity of the Republic, but in taking care that none of this money shall be wasted by mismanagement in its application to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... our accountability to God, of our entire dependence upon his blessing for success in all our undertakings, knowing that of ourselves we can do nothing, but believing that through Christ strengthening us we may accomplish something in his service, we enter upon the duties of another year—the ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... frequent reference to the souls of the indentured ones; Englishmen at the old home wrote to the settlers to remember well their religious, their proselyting duties; and they faithfully reminded each other of their accountability for souls. For instance, when a smart young Irishman came over with some Irish hounds, his consigner besought the New Englanders to remember that it was as godly to "winne this fellowes soule out of the subtillest snare of ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... on this over-worked argument of centering responsibility. Accountability means that a man charged with the performance of a task shall be held undividedly responsible for it. Now the commissioners collectively legislate. They can not do this without constantly and seriously intruding upon the work of the several ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon

... law should be designed to protect and elevate the general body politic and social. A very close supervision should be exercised over the steamship companies which mainly bring over the immigrants, and they should be held to a strict accountability for any infraction of ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt

... untouched after days and weeks; the farmer left his implements in the field without fear of losing them; and theft and robbery became comparatively rare. In a great measure this was, no doubt, due to the strict organization which Rollo introduced, and his insistence upon the personal accountability of each one of his subjects to himself. For he had learned one most important lesson from his enemy, Harold the Fair-haired. This king was the first to establish in Europe what is called the feudal system of land-tenure. He declared all land to be the property of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... all Christian organizations could and professedly do subscribe. Belief in the existence and powers of the Supreme Trinity; in Jesus Christ as the Savior and Redeemer of mankind; in man's individual accountability for his doings; in the acceptance of sacred writ as the Word of God; in the rights of Worship according to the dictates of conscience; in all the moral virtues;—these professions and beliefs are as a common creed in the realm of Christendom. There is no peculiarly "Mormon" interpretation, in ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... exacted with less rigour than that belonging to a civil department under government, when it is not connected with accountability in money; none so rigorous where money is concerned. How is this to be accounted for, unless it is by shewing that the nature of the situation admits of giving way to the feelings of humanity in one case, and not in the other? ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... which sometimes come upon the good without fault of theirs do yet spring from human faults somewhere, with those exceptions alone that result from the necessary contingencies of finite creatures, exposures outside the sphere of human accountability. With this qualification, it would be easy to show in detail that the sufferings of the private individual and of mankind at large are, directly or indirectly, the products of guilt, violated law. All the woes, for instance, of poverty ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... conditions of experience—the exterior conditions of physical nature and human society. Such are the ideas of cause and substance; of unity and infinity, which govern all the processes of discursive thought, and lead us to the recognition of Being in se;—such the ideas of right, of duty, of accountability, and of retribution, which regulate all the conceptions we form of our relations to all other moral beings, and constitute morality;—such the ideas of order, of proportion, and of harmony, which preside in the realms of art, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... connected with elections will be held to a rigid accountability and will be subject to trial by military commission for fraud, or unlawful or improper conduct in the performance of their duties. Their rate of compensation and manner of payment will be in accordance with ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan

... when Miss Bailey gently disengaged herself and set out upon her uptown way. She passed from the hush of the hospital walls and halls into another phase of her accountability. Upon the steps, a woman, wild-eyed and dishevelled, was hurling an unintelligible mixture of pleading and abuse upon the stalwart frame of Patrick Brennan's father, the policeman on the beat. The woman ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... determination of the great ethical question as to the moral responsibility for the present crime against civilization. That must be determined by the facts as they have been developed, and the nations and individuals who are responsible for this world-wide catastrophe must be held to a strict accountability. The truth of ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... Pagan and a Christian people is in the power of conscience, in the sense of a moral accountability to a spiritual Deity, in the hopes or fears of a future state,—motives which have a powerful influence on the elevation of individual character and the development of higher types of social organization. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... connecting thread the whole experience of his life, the whole result of his studies, was to cluster in imperishable crystals. The cornerstone of his system was the Freedom of the Will (in other words, the right of private judgment with the condition of accountability), which Beatrice calls the "noble virtue."[202] As to every man is offered his choice between good and evil, and as, even upon the root of a nature originally evil a habit of virtue may be engrafted,[203] ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... that restless spirit of disunion which has been ascribed to the South, I should know full well that I had no such foundation as this to rely upon—no such great reserve in the heart of the people to fall back upon in the hour of accountability. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... selection to develop the latent mental capacities of this species. It is perhaps the only form of those which man has subjugated which by his treatment he tends to degrade. In the time to come, when men will be held to a better accountability for the treatment of their captives, the condition of these animals will afford a fair field for the ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... ministrations and observances of the Catholic service was the only way of salvation that he could possibly see. It is true that he had been all his life a Protestant, but Protestantism was to him only a political faith, it had nothing to do with moral accountability or preparation for heaven. The spiritual views of acceptance with God by simple personal penitence and faith in the atoning sacrifice of his Son, which lie at the foundation of the system of the Church of England, he never conceived of. ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... Upon this point, Catholics and Protestants have always stood together. They are no longer men; they become hyenas, they dig open graves. They devour the dead. It is an auto da fe presided over by God and his angels. These men believed in the accountability of men in the practice of virtue and justice. They believed in liberty, but they did not believe in the inspiration of the bible. That was their crime. In order to show that infidels died overwhelmed with remorse and ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll



Words linked to "Accountability" :   responsibleness, answerability, responsibility



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com