perspicuity

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Like many men of great intelligence, his perspicuity was not spontaneous, as it did not at once penetrate to the heart of things.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun The quality of being perspicuous; clearness and lucidity: "He was at pains to insist on the perspicuity of what he wrote” (Lionel Trilling).
  2. noun Perspicacity.

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Examples (50)

  • For the perspicuity, I have struggled hard Your affectionate and grateful ELZBETH. —  The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2)
  • Fully sensible as I am of the misleading nature of the analogy which these words embody, I have yet adopted them for the sake of perspicuity--being careful, however, never to allow the false analogy which they express to enter into an argument on either side of the question. —  A Candid Examination of Theism
  • For the sake of brevity and perspicuity, we shall present it in a concatenation of propositions, that in the end will cover the whole ground, and conduct us safely to the surest biblical results Scripture view of the Influence of the Sacraments I. The plan of salvation, revealed in God's word, presupposes that, man is a fallen creature, depraved in nature and practice_,--that all men are rebels against the righteous government of God, lying under his righteous displeasure, and morally disqualified for heaven. —  American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics Including a Reply to the Plea of Rev. W. J. Mann
  • His sense of humour was indomitable If there is one thing in the Press this morning," he declared, "more pronounced than the diatribes upon your speech, it is the number of compliments paid to me for my perspicuity in extending the hand of friendship to the most dangerous political factor at present existent,--vide the Oracle_. —  A People's Man
  • He has traced the law of the emission of caloric sought for, with a perspicuity which one cannot sufficiently admire, in the most ordinary phenomena of temperature, in the phenomena which at first sight appeared to be entirely independent of it Such is the privilege of genius; it perceives, it seizes relations where vulgar eyes see only isolated facts Nobody doubts, and besides experiment has confirmed the fact, that in all the points of a space terminated by any envelop maintained at a constant temperature, we ought also to experience a constant temperature, and precisely that of the envelop. —  Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
 

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

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  1. from French perspicuité = Spanish perspicuidad = Portuguese perspicuidade = Italian perspicuitá, from Latin perspicuita(t-)s, transparency, from perspicuus, transparent: see perspicuous.
 

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/pərspɪˈkjuəti/
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