dignity

From Middle English dignyte, borrowed from Old French dignité, from Latin dignitās ("worthiness, merit, grandeur, rank"), itself from dignus ("worthy, appropriate"). That traces back through Proto-Italic *degnos to Proto-Indo-European *dḱ-nos, from a root *deḱ- meaning "to take."

In English, this borrowed word pushed aside two native Old English terms that had covered similar ground: weorþsċipe (which survives today as "worship") and hād, an old word for honor or rank.

It's a cognate of "deign" and a doublet of "dainty" — both descending from the same Latin root dignus, meaning worthy.