Zygmunt Bauman has remarked quite astutely that a word has ‘a feel’ as well as a meaning (Bauman 2001, 1); we might be tempted to append that it has also a history. The relation between changes in society over historical time and the concomitant transformation of a concept that depicts something of intrinsic value in that society is complex and contingent. An attempt is made, here, to see if we can get any closer to a rounded, threedimensional view of dignity by drawing on the historical record, on philosophy and social thought more widely and, finally, on contributions that present dignity in a rather more public and political light. We are at once faced with the question as to whether dignity is primarily an ethical– moral question, a politico– legal matter, a property of the normative order, an ontological phenomenon or, in itself, a force of nature. It may be all of these things at any one time, or, conspicuously, none of them. In considering what he calls the ‘compass of moral value judgements’, Friedrich Nietzsche lists dignity along with other ‘virtues’ he describes as being ‘sweet- sounding words’ (Nietzsche 2017, 210). If we were to take dignity as the case in point, he wonders whether it should be taken in itself, in its own right, or as seen from a certain perspective, or, even, in terms of its consequences (or, perhaps, its utility). Despite his disparagement of a ‘virtue’ like dignity, he is drawing out for us, here, the rounded, three- dimensional quality we might be looking for. At this point, however, answers to the questions he raises are not really forthcoming.