modality

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The fact, state, or quality of being modal.
2. n. A tendency to conform to a general pattern or belong to a particular group or category.
3. n. Logic The classification of propositions on the basis of whether they assert or deny the possibility, impossibility, contingency, or necessity of their content. Also called mode.
4. n. The ceremonial forms, protocols, or conditions that surround formal agreements or negotiations: "[He] grew so enthusiastic about our prospects that he began to speculate on the modalities of signing” ( Henry A. Kissinger).
5. n. Medicine A therapeutic method or agent, such as surgery, chemotherapy, or electrotherapy, that involves the physical treatment of a disorder.
6. n. Physiology Any of the various types of sensation, such as vision or hearing.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The fact of being a mode.
2. n. A determination of an accident; a mode.
3. n. Mode in the logical sense; that wherein problematical, assertoric, and apodictic judgments are distinguished.
4. n. In civil law, the quality of being limited as to time or place of performance, or, more loosely, of being suspended by a condition: said of a promise.
5. n. 5. Same as modalism.
6. n. In psychology:
7. n. The nature or character of sensation or stimulus as determined by the sense-department to which it belongs or appeals: a term proposed by Helmholtz, to avoid a confusing use of quality.
8. n. Hence— the sense-department itself: as, sensations of different modalities.

Wiktionary

1. n. the state of being modal
2. n. logic the classification of propositions on the basis on whether they claim possibility, impossibility, contingency or necessity; mode
3. n. linguistics the inflection of a verb that shows how its action is conceived by the speaker; mood
4. n. medicine any method of therapy that involves therapeutic treatment
5. n. any of the senses (such as sight or taste)
6. n. semiotics a particular way in which the information is to be encoded for presentation to humans, i.e. to the type of sign and to the status of reality ascribed to or claimed by a sign, text or genre
7. n. theology the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations
8. n. music the subject concerning certain diatonic scales known as musical modes
9. n. sociology a concept in Anthony Giddens structuration theory

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The quality or state of being modal.
2. n. (Logic & Metaph.) A modal relation or quality; a mode or point of view under which an object presents itself to the mind. According to Kant, the quality of propositions, as assertory, problematical, or apodeictic.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a method of therapy that involves physical or electrical therapeutic treatment
2. n. a particular sense
3. n. verb inflections that express how the action or state is conceived by the speaker
4. n. a classification of propositions on the basis of whether they claim necessity or possibility or impossibility