laxity
(ˈlæksɪtɪ)
[a. F. laxité, ad. L. laxitātem, f. laxus lax a.]
The quality of being lax.
1. Looseness, irretentiveness (of the bowels, etc.); slackness, want of tension (in the muscular or nervous fibres, etc.).
| 1528 Paynel tr. Reg. Salerni (1535) 119 b, Superfluous drynkynge of cold drynke..causeth the palsey, or laxite of the membres. 1620 Venner Via Recta viii. 184 The stomacke..if it be subiect to laxitie. 1672 Wisemen Wounds ii. v. 36 There arises a laxity and indigesture in the Wound. 1707 Floyer Physic. Pulse-Watch 203 The Laxity of Fibres in the Habit of the Body, or Viscera, is restored by Exercise, Friction, and cold Baths. 1775 Johnson Let. to Mrs. Thrale 13 July, In her early state of laxity and feebleness. 1789 W. Buchan Dom. Med. (1790) 319 This disease may..proceed from too great a laxity of the organs which secrete the urine. 1799 M. Underwood Dis. Childr. (ed. 4) I. 6 The great moisture and laxity of infants. |
2. Looseness of texture or cohesion; openness, uncompact structure or arrangement.
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 229 The skin..by the closenesse or laxitie thereof, as he drawes it in, or lets it out. 1660 Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. xxxvi. 300 The dif-form consistence, as to laxity and compactness of the Air at several distances from us. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. vii. (1693) 25 The former [cause] could never beget Whirl⁓pools in a Chaos of so great a Laxity and Thinness. |
3. Looseness or slackness in the moral and intellectual spheres; want of firmness, strictness, or precision.
| 1623 Cockeram, Laxitie, pardon, chiefly cheapnesse. 1656 Blount Glossogr., Laxity, looseness, wildness, liberty. 1775 Johnson Tax. no Tyr. 20 Every expedition would in those days of laxity have produced a distinct and independent state. 1795 Mason Ch. Mus. iii. 187, I need not observe on the laxity of that Version. 1830 Scott Demonol. viii. 260 Such laxity of discipline afforded scope to the wildest enthusiasm. 1838 J. H. Newman Par. Serm. (1839) IV. ix. 156 All these laxities of conduct impress upon our conscience a vague sense..of guilt. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. ix. II. 422 The very faults of their colleague, the known laxity of his principles. 1858 Froude Hist. Eng. III. xvi. 407 Laxity of assertion in matters of number is so habitual as to have lost the character of falsehood. 1865 Tylor Early Hist. Man. iv. 77 Carelessness and laxity in articulation. 1870 Rogers Hist. Gleanings Ser. ii. 54 Laxity of belief is coupled with laxity of practice. 1875 Protests Lords I. Pref. 10 A laxity of language, which must have conveyed far more than the framers of the Act contemplated. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 265 Such tales..engender laxity of morals among the young. |
† 4. Spaciousness. [A Latinism: cf. lax a. 6.]
| 1650 Fuller Pisgah ii. v. 122 The hills in Palestine generally had in their sides plenty of caves, and those of such laxity and receit that ours in England are but conny⁓boroughs if compared to the palaces which those hollow places afforded. |