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Namus
Nāmūs is the Arabic word (from Greek "νόμος") of a concept of an ethical category, a virtue, in Middle Eastern patriarchal character. Literally translated as "virtue", it is now more popularly used in a strong gender-specific context of relations within a family described in terms of honor, attention, respect/respectability, and modesty.
The Arabic word "nāmūs" (ناموس) may mean "law", "custom" or "honor". The Ancient Greek word "nómos" (νόμος) means "law, custom".
Namus has been translated into English from the Turkish language with different meanings. Honor is used to mean namus in the English language translation of Filiz Kardam's 2005 paper on namus cinayetleri (literally namus murders, used mainly in newspapers), but according to Nüket Kardam has written that chastity is a more accurate translation than honor. This is built into the legal system which permits reduced sentences for honor killings. |