materiality
(mətɪərɪˈælɪtɪ)
[a. mod.L. māteriālitās, f. late L. māteriālis material a.: see -ity. Cf. F. matérialité (1690 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. That which constitutes the ‘matter’ of something: opposed to formality. ? Obs.
The first quot. is app. unmeaning, but attests the existence of the word at that date.
| a 1529 Skelton Col. Cloute 561 And bryng in materialites And qualyfyed qualytes Of pluralytes. 1592 G. Harvey Four Lett. Wks. (Grosart) I. 229 As in other thinges, so in Artes, formality doth well; but materiality worketh the feat. 1646 H. Lawrence Comm. Angells 130 Righteousnes, which is, as I may say, the materiality of peace. 1647 Trapp Comm. Mark ii. 28 The schoolmen say that God can dispense with the materiality of any precept in the decalogue, the three first excepted. 1652 L. S. People's Liberty xviii. 45 Whether..God..can dispence with the Commandements of the 2d. Table, according to the materialitie of them. 1660 Jer. Taylor Duct. Dubit. ii. ii. Rule ii. (1676) 215 If blood be taken in its own materiality when the beast is dead. |
2. The quality of being material.
| 1570 Dee Math. Pref. *j, Neither Number, nor Magnitude, haue any Materialitie. 1647 H. More Poems 108 Vitality Doth move th' inert Materiality Of great and little worlds. 1690 Locke Hum. Und. iv. iii. §6 He..will scarce find his reason able to determine him fixedly for or against the soul's materiality. 1794 G. Adams Nat. & Exp. Philos. I vii. 250 The decomposition of the rays of light proves their materiality. 1863 Tyndall Heat ii. 25 The dynamical theory..of heat, discards the idea of materiality as applied to heat. 1871 Tylor Prim. Cult. I. 412 Wuttke says, the ghosts of the dead have to him a misty and evanescent materiality. |
b. That which is material; pl. things material.
| 1811 Shelley St. Irvyne xii, Let them suppose human nature capable of no influence from anything but materiality. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) III. 85 To enable it to behold God in the materialities of his works. 1821 Lamb Elia Ser. i. Old Benchers Inner T., When the grown world flounders about in the darkness of sense and materiality. 1855 Athenæum 3 Nov. 1267 The former believes in visions, the latter in materialities. 1880 W. Wallace Epicureanism vi. 102 The soul is a subtler and more refined materiality, which is thus endowed with more..refined perceptions than the bodily organs. |
3. Material aspect or character; mere outwardness or externality.
| 1599 Sandys Europæ Spec. (1632) 18 Their acts of Pietie, being placed more in the very massie materialitie of the outward worke, than in the puritie of the heart. 1651 Jer. Taylor Serm. for Year II. ii. 15 The materiality and imperfection of the law. 1765 Johnson Pref. to Shaks. p. xxvi, It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible. |
4. The quality of being material or important for the purpose contemplated. Now legal.
| 1644 Vicars God in Mount 96 A peece of unexpressible materiality and advantageous benefit to the whole Cause. 1780 Bentham Princ. Legisl. ix. §3 There are two points with regard to which an act may have been advised or unadvised. 1. The existence of the circumstance itself. 2. The materiality of it. 1824 H. J. Stephen Pleading 256 Rules which tend to secure the materiality of the issue. 1849 J. P. Kennedy W. Wirt (1860) I. xiii. 154 The relevancy or materiality of the papers referred to was not shown. 1884 Manch. Exam. 29 Mar. 5/2 As he had an affidavit swearing to the materiality of the documents he asked for the order. |