Word.ws English Dictionary

quiddity

/ˈkwɪdɪti/

quiddity noun: the essence or inherent nature of a person or thing.

Noun

quiddity (countable and uncountable, plural quiddities)

  1. The essence or inherent nature of a person or thing.
    • 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.October 1822, Charles Lamb, “The Old Actors”, in London Magazine, Mr. Munden
    • My vision reeked with truth. It had the tone,
      The quiddity and quaintness of its own
      Reality.1962, Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
    Synonyms:
    nature
  2. A trifle; a nicety or quibble.
  3. An eccentricity; an odd feature.
    • 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...1744, A Dialogue Between the Rev. Mr. Jenkin Evans and Mr. Peter Dobson, concerning Bishops., London: M. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-noſter-row, →OCLC, page 37

quiddity meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Tagalog and Arabic

quiddity in Tamil

நுணுக்கப் போக்கு, நகைச்சுவை, சாரம்

quiddity in Urdu

اصلیت, باریک بینی, جوہر

quiddity in Tagalog

essence
kaitungaan

quiddity in Arabic

essence
مَاهِيَّة māhiyya

Examples of quiddity in a sentence

  • 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.1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 352:
  • Something that sums up the essential quiddity of being me, right here, right now.2023 December 8, The Big Issue, Melbourne, page 35, column 1:

Synonyms of quiddity

Forms of quiddity

pluralquiddities

Origin of quiddity

From Middle English quidite, from Old French quidité, and its source, Late Latin quidditās, from Latin quid (“what”) + -itas (“-ness”) (whence -ity).

Words formed from quiddity

Questions about quiddity

What does quiddity mean?
Quiddity means the essence or inherent nature of a person or thing.
What is quiddity in Tamil?
Quiddity in Tamil is நுணுக்கப் போக்கு, நகைச்சுவை, சாரம். See Quiddity meaning in Tamil.
How do you use quiddity in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is quiddity?
Quiddity is a noun.
How do you pronounce quiddity?
Quiddity is pronounced /ˈkwɪdɪti/ (UK).
What is the plural of quiddity?
The plural of quiddity is quiddities.

Words near quiddity in the dictionary

  1. quidditch
  2. quiddities
  3. quidditism
  4. quidditistic
  5. quiddits
  6. quiddity
  7. quiddle
  8. quiddled
  9. quiddler
  10. quiddlers
  11. quiddles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quiddity (page history and authors); quiddity (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quiddity (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-quiddity.wav.

Cite this entry: “quiddity.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quiddity. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.