conformitas

Conformitas is a Latin noun meaning conformity, agreement, or compliance. It derives from conformare, “to shape together” or “to make alike,” and in Latin texts it often denotes the state or act of being in agreement with a rule, norm, or external standard.

In legal and administrative contexts, conformitas was used in medieval and early modern Latin to signal that actions, documents, or decisions complied with established statutes or regulations. It appears in charters and legal writings as a general term for adherence to legal requirements, reflecting the importance of aligning practice with prescribed norms.

In theology and philosophy, conformitas is employed to describe the alignment of human faculties and actions with a higher order of truth or authority. In Catholic scholastic thought, discussions of conformitas often concern the conformity of the will to the divine will or the conformity of the intellect to truth, seen as essential for moral and spiritual formation. The term can also appear in discussions of virtue, sanctification, and the ordered harmony between a person’s inner dispositions and external duties.

Today, conformitas is primarily encountered in historical, religious, or linguistic studies of Latin terminology. In contemporary English, the concept it expresses is more commonly rendered as conformity or compliance, rather than by using the Latin noun itself. As a scholarly term, conformitas helps illuminate how Latin speakers framed the idea of alignment with rules, norms, or higher authorities across different fields.