quiddity

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English

WOTD – 17 August 2015
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Etymology

From Middle English quidite, from Old French quidité, and its source, Late Latin quidditas, from Latin quid (“what”) + -itas (“-ness”).

Pronunciation

Noun

quiddity (countable and uncountable, plural quiddities)

  1. (philosophy) The essence or inherent nature of a person or thing.
    • October 1822, Charles Lamb, “The Old Actors”, in London Magazine‎, Mr. Munden:
      A tub of butter, contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the commonplace materials of life, like primæval man, with the sun and stars about him.
    • 1962, Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire:
      My vision reeked with truth. It had the tone,
      The quiddity and quaintness of its own
      Reality.
    • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 352:
      He represented my quiddity I suppose – the part which, thanks to you, has converted a black pessimism about life into a belief in cosmic absurdity.
    • 2023 December 8, The Big Issue, Melbourne, page 35, column 1:
      When I send a card, it has to be right. Something that sums up the essential quiddity of being me, right here, right now.
  2. (law) A trifle; a nicety or quibble.
  3. An eccentricity; an odd feature.
    • 1744, A Dialogue Between the Rev. Mr. Jenkin Evans and Mr. Peter Dobson, concerning Bishops.‎, London: M. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-noſter-row, →OCLC, page 37:
      They have ſwallowed and digeſted all the Fathers, the Codes, Provincials, Decretals, Pandects, Councils, Canons ; are Maſters of all the Schoolmen, not to fill their Heads and ſtuff their Writings with Quiddities and Quoddities, and far-fetched unintelligible Diſtinctions, but to be able to reaſon cloſely, to argue ſolidly, to rebuke, to confute, to reply, to rejoind, to ſyllogize, to criticize, to apologize, to advertize, to ſermonize, to decypherize, to――

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See also

  • “quiddity”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
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