quiddity

• A novelist's ultimate achievement is to enable us to know a character so well that we catch a glimpse of his inviolable unknowability, his singular quiddity -- in other words, though Wood doesn't use the term, his soul. —  Powell's Books: Overview
• "Psha! he has not put that in at all As a matter of entity and quiddity, it is well-nigh impossible to put into a letter the little quivering lift of spirit that may come to a man just because a girl's hair is lustrous, her eyes winey, her voice delicious, her smile one of gay fellowship FOOTNOTE 1] Carington could not Chapter Five BOOM TIME IN THE TOWN THAT JACK BUILT Here we are! —  Sally of Missouri
• But we are now speaking of nature as it signifies the essence, or the "what-it-is," or the quiddity of the species Now, if we take nature in this way, it is impossible that the union of the Incarnate Word took place in the nature. —  Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition
• Consequently, the definition of substance is not--"a being of itself without a subject," nor is the definition of accident--"a being in a subject"; but it belongs to the quiddity or essence of substance "to have existence not in a subject"; while it belongs to the quiddity or essence of accident "to have existence in a subject." —  Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition
• Therefore God's existence is not the same as His essence--that is, as His quiddity or nature On the contrary, Hilary says (Trin. —  Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) From the Complete American Edition

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context