| 释义 |
quiddity|ˈkwɪdɪtɪ|
[ad. schol. L. quidditas: see quid n.1 and -ity; so F. quiddité (14th c.).]
1. The real nature or essence of a thing; that which makes a thing what it is.
1569J. Sandford tr. Agrippa's Van. Artes 21 The true demonstration..is that whiche is made (as the Logitioners speake) by Quiddites, and by the proper difference of thinges. 1628T. Spencer Logick 75 Dissent is in the qualitie not the quidditie, or being of the subject. 1670Maynwaring Vita Sana x. 106 These notions being too..remote from the quiddity, essence and spring of the Disease. 1710Berkeley Princ. Hum. Knowl. §81 The positive abstract idea of quiddity, entity, or existence. 1828De Quincey Rhetoric Wks. 1862 X. 76 The quiddity, or characteristic difference, of poetry as distinguished from prose. 1897S. S. Sprigge Life of T. Wakley xiii. 125 The quiddity of each attitude was the desire to curtail the privileges of the hospital surgeons.
b. Something intangible. rare—1.
1774Burke Sp. Amer. Tax. Wks. 1842 I. 158 Fighting for a phantom; a quiddity; a thing that wants, not only a substance, but even a name.
2. A subtlety or captious nicety in argument; a quirk, quibble. (Alluding to scholastic arguments on the ‘quiddity’ of things.)
1539Taverner Gard. Wysed. i. 18 b, [He] must nat playe with hys sophemes and quyddities. 1579Fulke Heskins' Parl. 475 Hee saith hee will not vse the quiddities of the schooles, but plaine examples. 1678R. Barclay Apol. Quakers §12. 371 To find out and invent subtile Distinctions and Quiddities. 1731Plain Reas. for Presbyt. Dissent. 138 The most honest cause is often run down with the torrent and speat of law-quirks and quiddities. 1807W. Irving Salmag. (1824) 33, I humbly solicit..A quiddity, quirk, or remonstrance to send. 1877C. Geikie Christ xxv. (1879) 281 Their..quiddities and quillets, and casuistical cases.
Comb.1863De Morgan Pref. in From Matter to Spirit 40, I went back to the old quiddity-mongers.
b. Subtlety (of wit); ability or tendency to employ quiddities.
1600W. Watson Decacordon (1602) 140 How shall euer those come in heauen, that haue neither qualitie of body to get it..nor quidditie of wit to keepe it? 1881W. S. Gilbert Patience, To stuff his conversation full of quibble and of quiddity. 1884R. Buchannan in Pall Mall G. 16 Apr., With the intellectual strength and bodily height of an Anak, he possessed the quiddity and animal spirits of Tom Thumb. |