dissimilitude
(dɪsɪˈmɪlɪtjuːd)
[ad. L. dissimilitūdo unlikeness, difference, dissimilarity, f. dissimilis unlike: see -tude.]
1. The condition or quality of being unlike; unlikeness, difference, dissimilarity; diversity.
| 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 682/2 There is speciall dissimilitude betwene the sinagoge and y⊇ church. 1564 Brief Exam. * * * iv, Dissimilitude of life and diuersitie of maners. 1697 tr. Burgersdicius his Logic i. xxi. 84 Dissimilitude in a diversity either in quality or passion. 1764 Reid Inquiry v. viii. Wks. I. 131/2 The colours are perfectly distinguishable, and their dissimilitude is manifest. 1876 J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. II. i. iii. 50 It often happens that men of very dissimilar talents..are attracted together by their very dissimilitude. |
b. with a and pl. An instance of dissimilarity.
| 1594 Hooker Eccl. Pol. Pref. ii. §2 Whereupon grew marvellous great dissimilitudes. 1642 Howell For. Trav. (Arb.) 30, I knowe Nature delights and triumphs in dissimilitudes. 1759 Johnson Rasselas xxviii, New impressions..might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation. 1863 Hawthorne Our Old Home, Leamington Spa (1879) 53 Such places..bloom only for the summer-season, and offer a thousand dissimilitudes even then. |
† 2. Rhet. A figure of speech in which a comparison is made by contrast. Obs.
| 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.) 248 The Tuskan poet vseth this Resemblance, inuring as well by Dissimilitude as Similitude. 1628 T. Spencer Logick 128 This that I haue sayd..is sufficient to shew the..vse of similitudes, and dissimilitudes. 1696 Phillips, Dissimilitude, unlikeness, whence a Form of Speech is so called wherein divers things are compared in a diverse Quality. 1727–51 [see dissimile]. |