quiddityn.

Brit.

/ˈkwɪdᵻti/, U.S.

/ˈkwɪdᵻdi/

Forms: Middle English–1500s quidite, 1500s quiddite, 1500s quidity, 1500s quyddity, 1500s–1600s quidditie, 1500s– quiddity.

Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Etymons: French quiddité; Latin quidditas.

Etymology: < Middle French quiddité (14th cent.; French quiddité ) and its etymon post-classical Latin quidditas (12th cent.; frequently from 13th cent. in British sources) < classical Latin quid (see quid n.¹) + -itās -ity suffix. In sense 2 originally in allusion to scholastic arguments on the essence or ‘quiddity’ of things.

a. Chiefly Philosophy. The inherent nature or essence of a person or thing; what makes a thing what it is. Cf. haecceity n.

ΘΚΠ

the world > existence and causation > existence > intrinsicality or inherence > essence or intrinsic nature > [noun]

pitheOE

i-cundeeOE

roota1325

substancec1330

juicec1380

marrowa1382

formc1385

acta1398

quidditya1398

substantial forma1398

inward1398

savourc1400

inwardc1450

allaya1456

essencya1475

being1521

bottom1531

spirit?1534

summary1548

ecceity1549

core1556

flower1568

formality1570

sum and substance1572

alloy1594

soul1598

inwardness1605

quid1606

fibre1607

selfness1611

whatness1611

essentialityc1616

propera1626

the whole shot1628

substantiala1631

esse1642

entity1643

virtuality1646

ingeny1647

quoddity1647

intimacy1648

ens1649

inbeing1661

essence1667

interiority1701

intrinsic1716

stamen1758

character1761

quidditas1782

hyparxis1792

rasa1800

bone1829

what1861

isness1865

inscape1868

as-suchness1909

Wesen1959

the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > scholasticism > [noun] > matter, form, or essence

formc1385

matterc1395

matter subjecta1398

quidditya1398

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 9 Swiche..tokeneþ & presentith simpliciter, onliche, and abstractlich þe quidite [L. quidditatem] & essenciam of god.

a1450 (c1400–25) H. Legat Serm. Passion in D. M. Grisdale 3 Middle Eng. Serm. (1939) 16 Tese..be nauth componid ex materia & forma, of mater & of forme, noyþur ex genere & differentia, ‘of comen quidite & vniuersal qualite’.

a1513 J. Irland Meroure of Wyssdome (1926) I. 32 And sene He js sa hie jn nature in His entite & deite mennis wyt may nocht cum to the perfit knawlage of His quidite and deite.

1569 J. Sanford tr. H. C. Agrippa Of Vanitie Artes & Sci. 21 The true demonstration..is that whiche is made (as the Logitioners speake) by Quiddites, and by the proper difference of thinges.

1628 T. Spencer Art of Logick 75 Dissent is in the qualitie not the quidditie, or being of the subject.

1670 E. Maynwaring Vita Sana & Longa (new ed.) x. 106 These notions being too..remote from the quiddity, essence and spring of the Disease.

1710 G. Berkeley Treat. Princ. Human Knowl. §81 The positive abstract idea of quiddity, entity, or existence.

1782 Encycl. Brit. IX. 6602/2 Quiddity, Quidditas, a barbarous term used in the schools for essence.

1828 T. De Quincey Elements Rhetoric in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 907/2 The quiddity, or characteristic difference, of poetry as distinguished from prose.

1897 S. S. Sprigge Life of T. Wakley xiii. 125 The quiddity of each attitude was the desire to curtail the privileges of the hospital surgeons.

1935 G. Blake Shipbuilders xii. 379 His lips and tongue were trembling to frame a sentence that would embody the quiddity of the spectacle.

1955 W. Gaddis Recognitions i. iii. 125 Quiddity, what the thing is, the thing itself,..he said that Kant says we can never know.

1995 Times 12 Oct. ii. 38/3 What fascinated Ruskin and later critics was Carpaccio's curious blend of documentation and fantasy; the quiddity of life is there, from gondolas to inkwells.

†b. Something intangible. Obsolete. rare.

ΚΠ

1775 E. Burke Speech Amer. Taxation 11 Fighting for a phantom; a quiddity; a thing that wants, not only a substance, but even a name.

a. A subtlety or nicety in argument; a quibble. In later use also: a witticism; a quip.Frequently in alliterative phrases, as quibbles and quiddities, quips and quiddities, quirks and quiddities, etc.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > excessive subtlety, hair-splitting > trivial argument, quibble > [noun]

quiddity1539

quibc1540

quibibec1540

quirk1565

quillity1573

quid1576

quillet1576

quipa1592

quiddit1592

quidlit1598

quibibble1606

punctual1610

quidlibet1611

catasophistrya1614

quibbling1633

Scotism1645

quibble1650

thingum1672

quoddity1682

scruple1713

baffle1783

nit1982

1539 R. Taverner Garden of Wysdom sig. B.viii^v [He] must not playe with his sophemes and quyddities.

1579 W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 475 Hee saith hee will not vse the quiddities of the schooles, but plaine examples.

1598 W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 1 i. ii. 45 How now, how nowe mad wag, what in thy quips and thy quiddities ?

1644 R. Baillie Lett. & Jrnls. (1841) II. 139 But finding that all yet they brought was but velitations on quiddities the most was impatient of their wayes.

1678 R. Barclay Apol. True Christian Divinity §12. 371 To find out and invent subtile Distinctions and Quiddities.

1731 Plain Reas. for Presbyterians Dissent. 138 The most honest cause is often run down with the torrent and speat of law-quirks and quiddities.

1764 W. Guthrie Reply to Counter-address 34 What a pretty string of quips and quiddities has my delicate adversary introduced?

1789 ‘A. Pasquin’ Poems II. 243 His gibes and his quiddities, cranks, and his wiles.

1804 Times 9 Apr. 7/1 We recommend to the Author to dismiss from his dialogue the miserable puns, the wretched attempts at wit and humour, the coarse allusions, and trifling quiddities which are an insult to true taste.

1877 J. C. Geikie Life & Words Christ I. xxv. 402 Their..quiddities, and quillets, and casuistical cases.

1935 Oshkosh (Wisconsin) Northwestern 13 Dec. 6/7 President Roosevelt was entertaining the mayors of the United States with quip and quiddity.

1951 W. C. Williams Autobiogr. xlviii. 318 A different voice, raving about a variety of proposals and quiddities that were more histrionic than treasonable.

1998 Washington Post (Nexis) 8 Mar. x3 [The book is] not your usual pussyfooting exercise in polite quibbles and quiddities; it is boisterous, Menckenesque pamphleteering.

b. As a mass noun: subtlety (of wit); ability or tendency to employ quiddities in argument.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > attention and judgement > judgement or decision > discernment, discrimination > [noun]

shedc950

skilla1200

skillwisenessa1200

doomc1374

subtilitya1398

subtiltyc1405

subtletya1425

dijudication1549

choice1583

decernment1586

quiddity1602

discerning1608

discernance1612

sensea1616

sense of things1648

tact1797

appreciation1810

kokum1848

the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > excessive subtlety, hair-splitting > trivial argument, quibble > [noun] > use of

quibbling1633

baffling1653

quirk1674

quibble1710

quibbing1874

quiddity1881

1602 W. Watson Decacordon Ten Quodlibeticall Questions 140 How shall euer those come in heauen, that haue neither qualitie of body to get it..nor quidditie of wit to keepe it?

1803 S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1956) II. 949 If you find my paper smell, or my Style savour, of scholastic quiddity, you must attribute it to the infectious quality of the Folio, on which I am writing.

1881 W. S. Gilbert Patience ii. 30 To stuff his conversation full of quibble and of quiddity.

1884 R. Buchanan in Pall Mall Gaz. 16 Apr. 1/2 With the intellectual strength and bodily height of an Anak, he possessed the quiddity and animal spirits of Tom Thumb.

1990 Times Lit. Suppl. 16 Nov. 1228/3 There is every emphasis on quiddity: the hyper-consciousness, the awareness of the wonderful artfulness in the natural world which he mimics in his fictions.

3. In plural. Idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, peculiar features. Chiefly in quirks and quiddities (cf. sense 2a, quirk n.¹ 5).

ΘΚΠ

the world > action or operation > behaviour > a standard of conduct > [noun] > deviation from normal standards of behaviour > instance of

singularity1570

excursion1615

eccentricity1657

exorbitanta1714

angularity1833

unconventionality1854

quiddities1941

1941 E. Linklater Man on my Back xxii. 308 He has malicious laughter for the quiddities of other men.

1958 Metrop. Mus. Art Bull. 17 97 Samplers from the European continent..exhibit fewer quirks and quiddities.

1978 J. Morris Oxford (rev. ed.) iv. xiv. 181 It is a weakness of Oxford to waste too much sentiment on quirks and quiddities.

2002 Financial Times (Nexis) 3 Dec. (Arts section) 15 Leonardo soon moved on, driven by empirical observation of the body's quirks and quiddities, to examine rather its richness in individual difference and variety.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2007; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

单词	quiddity
释义	quiddityn. Brit. /ˈkwɪdᵻti/, U.S. /ˈkwɪdᵻdi/ Forms: Middle English–1500s quidite, 1500s quiddite, 1500s quidity, 1500s quyddity, 1500s–1600s quidditie, 1500s– quiddity. Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Etymons: French quiddité; Latin quidditas. Etymology: < Middle French quiddité (14th cent.; French quiddité ) and its etymon post-classical Latin quidditas (12th cent.; frequently from 13th cent. in British sources) < classical Latin quid (see quid n.¹) + -itās -ity suffix. In sense 2 originally in allusion to scholastic arguments on the essence or ‘quiddity’ of things. 1. a. Chiefly Philosophy. The inherent nature or essence of a person or thing; what makes a thing what it is. Cf. haecceity n. ΘΚΠ the world > existence and causation > existence > intrinsicality or inherence > essence or intrinsic nature > [noun] pitheOE i-cundeeOE roota1325 substancec1330 juicec1380 marrowa1382 formc1385 acta1398 quidditya1398 substantial forma1398 inward1398 savourc1400 inwardc1450 allaya1456 essencya1475 being1521 bottom1531 spirit?1534 summary1548 ecceity1549 core1556 flower1568 formality1570 sum and substance1572 alloy1594 soul1598 inwardness1605 quid1606 fibre1607 selfness1611 whatness1611 essentialityc1616 propera1626 the whole shot1628 substantiala1631 esse1642 entity1643 virtuality1646 ingeny1647 quoddity1647 intimacy1648 ens1649 inbeing1661 essence1667 interiority1701 intrinsic1716 stamen1758 character1761 quidditas1782 hyparxis1792 rasa1800 bone1829 what1861 isness1865 inscape1868 as-suchness1909 Wesen1959 the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > scholasticism > [noun] > matter, form, or essence formc1385 matterc1395 matter subjecta1398 quidditya1398 a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 9 Swiche..tokeneþ & presentith simpliciter, onliche, and abstractlich þe quidite [L. quidditatem] & essenciam of god. a1450 (c1400–25) H. Legat Serm. Passion in D. M. Grisdale 3 Middle Eng. Serm. (1939) 16 Tese..be nauth componid ex materia & forma, of mater & of forme, noyþur ex genere & differentia, ‘of comen quidite & vniuersal qualite’. a1513 J. Irland Meroure of Wyssdome (1926) I. 32 And sene He js sa hie jn nature in His entite & deite mennis wyt may nocht cum to the perfit knawlage of His quidite and deite. 1569 J. Sanford tr. H. C. Agrippa Of Vanitie Artes & Sci. 21 The true demonstration..is that whiche is made (as the Logitioners speake) by Quiddites, and by the proper difference of thinges. 1628 T. Spencer Art of Logick 75 Dissent is in the qualitie not the quidditie, or being of the subject. 1670 E. Maynwaring Vita Sana & Longa (new ed.) x. 106 These notions being too..remote from the quiddity, essence and spring of the Disease. 1710 G. Berkeley Treat. Princ. Human Knowl. §81 The positive abstract idea of quiddity, entity, or existence. 1782 Encycl. Brit. IX. 6602/2 Quiddity, Quidditas, a barbarous term used in the schools for essence. 1828 T. De Quincey Elements Rhetoric in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 907/2 The quiddity, or characteristic difference, of poetry as distinguished from prose. 1897 S. S. Sprigge Life of T. Wakley xiii. 125 The quiddity of each attitude was the desire to curtail the privileges of the hospital surgeons. 1935 G. Blake Shipbuilders xii. 379 His lips and tongue were trembling to frame a sentence that would embody the quiddity of the spectacle. 1955 W. Gaddis Recognitions i. iii. 125 Quiddity, what the thing is, the thing itself,..he said that Kant says we can never know. 1995 Times 12 Oct. ii. 38/3 What fascinated Ruskin and later critics was Carpaccio's curious blend of documentation and fantasy; the quiddity of life is there, from gondolas to inkwells. †b. Something intangible. Obsolete. rare. ΚΠ 1775 E. Burke Speech Amer. Taxation 11 Fighting for a phantom; a quiddity; a thing that wants, not only a substance, but even a name. 2. a. A subtlety or nicety in argument; a quibble. In later use also: a witticism; a quip.Frequently in alliterative phrases, as quibbles and quiddities, quips and quiddities, quirks and quiddities, etc. ΘΚΠ the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > excessive subtlety, hair-splitting > trivial argument, quibble > [noun] quiddity1539 quibc1540 quibibec1540 quirk1565 quillity1573 quid1576 quillet1576 quipa1592 quiddit1592 quidlit1598 quibibble1606 punctual1610 quidlibet1611 catasophistrya1614 quibbling1633 Scotism1645 quibble1650 thingum1672 quoddity1682 scruple1713 baffle1783 nit1982 1539 R. Taverner Garden of Wysdom sig. B.viii^v [He] must not playe with his sophemes and quyddities. 1579 W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 475 Hee saith hee will not vse the quiddities of the schooles, but plaine examples. 1598 W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 1 i. ii. 45 How now, how nowe mad wag, what in thy quips and thy quiddities ? View more context for this quotation 1644 R. Baillie Lett. & Jrnls. (1841) II. 139 But finding that all yet they brought was but velitations on quiddities the most was impatient of their wayes. 1678 R. Barclay Apol. True Christian Divinity §12. 371 To find out and invent subtile Distinctions and Quiddities. 1731 Plain Reas. for Presbyterians Dissent. 138 The most honest cause is often run down with the torrent and speat of law-quirks and quiddities. 1764 W. Guthrie Reply to Counter-address 34 What a pretty string of quips and quiddities has my delicate adversary introduced? 1789 ‘A. Pasquin’ Poems II. 243 His gibes and his quiddities, cranks, and his wiles. 1804 Times 9 Apr. 7/1 We recommend to the Author to dismiss from his dialogue the miserable puns, the wretched attempts at wit and humour, the coarse allusions, and trifling quiddities which are an insult to true taste. 1877 J. C. Geikie Life & Words Christ I. xxv. 402 Their..quiddities, and quillets, and casuistical cases. 1935 Oshkosh (Wisconsin) Northwestern 13 Dec. 6/7 President Roosevelt was entertaining the mayors of the United States with quip and quiddity. 1951 W. C. Williams Autobiogr. xlviii. 318 A different voice, raving about a variety of proposals and quiddities that were more histrionic than treasonable. 1998 Washington Post (Nexis) 8 Mar. x3 [The book is] not your usual pussyfooting exercise in polite quibbles and quiddities; it is boisterous, Menckenesque pamphleteering. b. As a mass noun: subtlety (of wit); ability or tendency to employ quiddities in argument. ΘΚΠ the mind > attention and judgement > judgement or decision > discernment, discrimination > [noun] shedc950 skilla1200 skillwisenessa1200 doomc1374 subtilitya1398 subtiltyc1405 subtletya1425 dijudication1549 choice1583 decernment1586 quiddity1602 discerning1608 discernance1612 sensea1616 sense of things1648 tact1797 appreciation1810 kokum1848 the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > excessive subtlety, hair-splitting > trivial argument, quibble > [noun] > use of quibbling1633 baffling1653 quirk1674 quibble1710 quibbing1874 quiddity1881 1602 W. Watson Decacordon Ten Quodlibeticall Questions 140 How shall euer those come in heauen, that haue neither qualitie of body to get it..nor quidditie of wit to keepe it? 1803 S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1956) II. 949 If you find my paper smell, or my Style savour, of scholastic quiddity, you must attribute it to the infectious quality of the Folio, on which I am writing. 1881 W. S. Gilbert Patience ii. 30 To stuff his conversation full of quibble and of quiddity. 1884 R. Buchanan in Pall Mall Gaz. 16 Apr. 1/2 With the intellectual strength and bodily height of an Anak, he possessed the quiddity and animal spirits of Tom Thumb. 1990 Times Lit. Suppl. 16 Nov. 1228/3 There is every emphasis on quiddity: the hyper-consciousness, the awareness of the wonderful artfulness in the natural world which he mimics in his fictions. 3. In plural. Idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, peculiar features. Chiefly in quirks and quiddities (cf. sense 2a, quirk n.¹ 5). ΘΚΠ the world > action or operation > behaviour > a standard of conduct > [noun] > deviation from normal standards of behaviour > instance of singularity1570 excursion1615 eccentricity1657 exorbitanta1714 angularity1833 unconventionality1854 quiddities1941 1941 E. Linklater Man on my Back xxii. 308 He has malicious laughter for the quiddities of other men. 1958 Metrop. Mus. Art Bull. 17 97 Samplers from the European continent..exhibit fewer quirks and quiddities. 1978 J. Morris Oxford (rev. ed.) iv. xiv. 181 It is a weakness of Oxford to waste too much sentiment on quirks and quiddities. 2002 Financial Times (Nexis) 3 Dec. (Arts section) 15 Leonardo soon moved on, driven by empirical observation of the body's quirks and quiddities, to examine rather its richness in individual difference and variety. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2007; most recently modified version published online June 2022). < n.a1398
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