-ity
(Latin: suffix used to form abstract nouns expressing act, state, quality, property, or condition corresponding to an adjective)
2. An awareness and understanding of the feelings of other people: The police chief cautioned his officers about interviewing accident victims with sensitivity because they were already upset and fearful.
As a teacher, Mrs. White has shown a great sensitivity to the needs of her students.
3. The ability to express one's thoughts and feelings through writing, music, drama, etc.: Geraldine's singing is characterized by a rich emotional sensitivity that many appreciate very much.Brian's brother has an excessive sensuality for eating and that is why he is called a glutton and is overweight.
2. A substance that promotes disintegration: To speed up the process of decomposition in the septic tank, Mr. Evans, the engineer, added a scientific mixture of septicities or substances that promote decaying which is developed by bacterial or fungal actions.
It was pure serendipity that the group found a water well when they were hiking in the desert.
2. An unexpected success in achieving a pleasant, valuable, or useful result: For a moment, Sally's mother thought she had achieved a serendipity because, while she was digging in the garden, a fountain of water suddenly shot up, however unfortunately she had only punctured a buried water pipe.3. An apparent ability for producing some fortunate consequences: Leonore was boiling peaches and suddenly exclaimed, "I must possess serendipity because I've invented peach jam!"
4. Etymology: Serendip, Serendib, former name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka); from Arabic Sarandib plus English -ity; from the possession of the gift by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip who "were always making discoveries, unexpectedly by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of".
Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.
Serendipity has become a significant word entry in English vocabulary!
The term made its first American dictionary appearance in Webster's New International Dictionary in 1909 and has often been linked with "an accidental or chance discovery".
It was in the 1930s when Walter Cannon of Harvard Medical School used the word to refer to the phenomenon of accidental discovery in scientific research. Then in 1946, sociologist Robert K. Merton and the historian Elinor Barber in The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science presented the concept of the "serendipity pattern" in empirical research, "of observing an unanticipated, anomalous, and strategic datum, which becomes the occasion for developing a new theory."
"I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity?"
Serendipity is finding what you want when you don't want it by looking where it wouldn't be if you did want it.
In Shakespeare's play "To be or not to be?", Hamlet held a solilquacious speech telling the audience what he was thinking.
2. A women's society in a college or university.
3. A group of women or girls joined together by common interests, for fellowship, etc.; specifically, a Greek-letter college or university organization.
2. An excessive or overabundant supply of something.
2. Reckless confidence that might be considered to be rude or offensive: No one had the temerity, or audacity, to challenge the senior manager's decision.
3. Etymology: from Middle French témérité; from Latin temeritatem, temeritas, "blind chance, accident, rashness"; from Latin temere, "by chance, blindly, casually, rashly"; related to tenebrae, "darkness".
Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.
The elaborate caution with which the British commander now proceeded stands out in striking contrast with the temerity of his advance upon Bunker Hill in the preceding year.
Drivers with the temerity to accelerate out of turns are likely to encounter torque steer, an unsettling glitch in control as the engine fights to take charge of the steering.
