Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or condition of being fixed.
  • noun Something fixed or immovable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being fixed; fixed character; fixedness; stability: as, fixity of tenure.
  • noun Specifically In physics, the state or property of a body in virtue of which it resists change under the action of heat or other cause.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Fixedness; ; also, that which is fixed.
  • noun Coherence of parts.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The state of being fixed
  • noun countable Something fixed

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of being incapable of mutation
  • noun the quality of being fixed in place as by some firm attachment

Etymologies

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Examples

  • It may be that, on the whole, the idea of fixity prevailed more among thinkers with a religious bias; but for the most part the theories were debated independently of the tenets of any faith, Christian or other.

    Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work 1904

  • It may be that, on the whole, the idea of fixity prevailed more among thinkers with a religious bias; but for the most part the theories were debated independently of the tenets of any faith, Christian or other.

    Thomas Henry Huxley A Sketch Of His Life And Work Mitchell, P Chalmers 1900

  • The difference in the mean variation of the first and second intervals respectively rises to an individual maximum of 3.000: 1.000, and averages for all subjects 2.290: 1.000; the fixity, that is to say, of the inter-group interval in this form of tapping is more than twice as great as that of the intra-group interval.

    Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory. Various 1889

  • We connect the idea of fixity with the mountains, but they seem to me to be continually pirouetting with each other, -- exchanging or entirely losing their identity.

    Gala-days Gail Hamilton 1864

  • Human artifices such as fixity and certainty are a big bore to the immortals.

    Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates Robbins, Tom 2000

  • Human artifices such as fixity and certainty are a big bore to the immortals.

    Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates Robbins, Tom 2000

  • Of course, this definition assumed the "fixity" of species; but with the wide prevalence of the views of Darwin and his followers the term "species" has fallen into disrepute, and is now regarded by many as only an artificial rank in classification corresponding to no objective reality in the natural world.

    Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation George McCready Price

  • Whatever may be said of the wind as a cheap agent of locomotion, this much may be safely predicated of steam vessels for the mails; that their time of departure and arrival has an absolute fixity which is attainable by no other means, and which is highly conducive to the best interests of all those for whom commerce is conducted.

    Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post Thomas Rainey

  • I watched him till his eyes began to look vague and a kind of fixity settled on his features, -- he was perfectly unconscious that I held him at my pleasure, -- and presently, satisfied with my experiment, I relaxed the spell and withdrew my hand.

    The Life Everlasting; a reality of romance Marie Corelli 1889

  • Trilling's, which revolutionized our understanding of this recalcitrant work, brings the history of nineteenth-century ideas about duty, sincerity and much else to bear on the novel's uncongenial insistence on "fixity" of identity and conduct.

    Powell's Books: Overview 2009

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