Meaning of quiddity | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The essence or inherent nature of a person or thing.
   countable, uncountable
2. A trifle; a nicety or quibble.
   countable, uncountable
3. An eccentricity; an odd feature.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“My vision reeked with truth. It had the tone, The quiddity and quaintness of its own⟳ Reality.”

“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.”

“When I send⟳ a card, it has to be right. Something that sums up the essential quiddity of being me, right here, right now.”

“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――”

CEFR level