QUIDDITY • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Quiddity

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noun

Quiddity n. (pl. quiddities)

The essence, nature, or distinctive peculiarity, of a thing; that which answers the question, Quid est? or, What is it? " The degree of nullity and quiddity." "The quiddity or characteristic difference of poetry as distinguished from prose."

A trifling nicety; a cavil; a quibble. "We laugh at the quiddities of those writers now."

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Etymology of 'Quiddity'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Quiddity" Quotes from Famous Books

... that in the fore-said definition is included what doth sufficiently distinguish it from nothing—the positive abstract idea of quiddity, entity, or existence. I own, indeed, that those who pretend to the faculty of framing abstract general ideas do talk as if they had such an idea, which is, say they, the most abstract and general notion of all; that is, to me, the most incomprehensible of all others. That there are ...

— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley

... what it touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and primal as the seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision. 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 common-place materials of life, like primaeval man with the sun and ...

— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

Words linked to "Quiddity" : heart, core, nitty-gritty, sum, substance, centre, center, inwardness, haecceity, heart and soul, meat, nub, cavil, evasion, kernel, pith, gist, marrow, quibble