All 16 Uses of

pious

in

The Scarlet Letter

It is a pious consolation to me that, through my interference, a sufficient space was allowed them for repentance of the evil and corrupt practices into which, as a matter of course, every Custom-House officer must be supposed to fall.
p. 15.8

pious = moral

The remainder may perhaps be applied to purposes equally valuable hereafter, or not impossibly may be worked up, so far as they go, into a regular history of Salem, should my veneration for the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task.
p. 26.8

pious = highly moral

Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels.
p. 60.6

piety = highly religious and moral behavior

Now Pearl knew well enough who made her, for Hester Prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child about her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her of those truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with such eager interest.
p. 76.5

pious = highly religious and moral

At all events, the health of the good town of Boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain in the guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favour than any that he could have produced in the shape of a diploma.
p. 81.0

piety = highly religious and moral behavior

The new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow, of good social rank, who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the site on which the venerable structure of King's Chapel has since been built.
p. 85.1

pious = highly religious and moral

Then after long search into the minister's dim interior, and turning over many precious materials, in the shape of high aspirations for the welfare of his race, warm love of souls, pure sentiments, natural piety, strengthened by thought and study, and illuminated by revelation—all of which invaluable gold was perhaps no better than rubbish to the seeker—he would turn back, discouraged, and begin his quest towards another point.†
p. 87.7

piety = religious or highly moral belief/behavior OR (more rarely) devotion or faithfulness

Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better—can be more for God's glory, or man' welfare—than God's own truth?
p. 89.9

pious = highly religious and moral

He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Master Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart.
p. 92.5

It was his custom, too, as it has been that of many other pious Puritans, to fast—not however, like them, in order to purify the body, and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination—but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance.
p. 97.7

pious = religious

"Worthy sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the foot of the platform—"pious Master Dimmesdale! can this be you?"
p. 105.4

pious = highly religious and moral

Hurrying along the street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale encountered the eldest female member of his church, a most pious and exemplary old dame, poor, widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about her dead husband and children, and her dead friends of long ago, as a burial-ground is full of storied gravestones.
p. 146.8

My one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend of mine, the Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over the many precious souls he hath won from heathendom!
p. 148.9

"Yes, to another world," replied the minister with pious resignation.
p. 150.6

pious = religious

The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling and become at once if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic or casually associate.†
p. 156.7

piety = religious or highly moral belief/behavior OR (more rarely) devotion or faithfulness

It is not for me to talk lightly of a learned and pious minister of the Word, like the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale.
p. 161.7 *

pious = highly religious and moral

Definitions:

(1) (pious as in: a good, pious woman)
religious or highly moral
(2) (pious as in: a pious hypocrite)
self-righteous (acting as though one is, or believing one is highly moral when it is not true)
(3) (pious as in: cling to the pious hope)
(describing a hope or wish as) sincere, but highly unlikely