Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The property of being multivalent.

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

  • noun (Chem.) Quality, state, or degree, of a multivalent element, atom, or radical.

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

  • noun The quality of being multivalent.

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

  • noun (chemistry) the state of having a valence greater than two

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word multivalence.

Examples

  • As for "multivalence": How multivalent is Hemingway's fiction?

    Style in Fiction 2009

  • The reason that an author ought to do this is that not doing so displays a lack of the multivalence that characterizes novels and a lack of sensitivity to difference in the human condition as evidenced in language.

    Style in Fiction 2009

  • Neither of them bother with the distinction between "author voice" and "character voice," neither of them bow to the commands of critics urging "multivalence."

    Style in Fiction 2009

  • The multivalence and ambiguity that characterize these images is in keeping with the nature of the entertainment, and enabled Marsh to engage contemporary concerns about class and authenticity, gender and employment, and consumer culture and personal fulfillment, while satirizing the performers, their fans, and the culture at large.

    Dissertation on Burlesque Burlesque Daily 2007

  • There exists no single work that traces ambiguity or multivalence through the whole of Western culture; there - fore the suggested readings are arranged historically.

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas TOM TASHIRO 1968

  • The problem of modernity is important to ambiguity as aesthetic principle, for its traces at the same time the decline of multivalence and opens up the question of what the word “Art” means.

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas TOM TASHIRO 1968

  • But the multivalence of the word “nature” comes out very clearly when we think of some of those ideas to which it is antithetical: the supernatural, art, custom, the post-primitive as contrasted with the primitive.

    NATURE GEORGE BOAS 1968

  • Therefore the delight of the critic in the multivalence of Hamlet's madness, or speculation on the motives for the delay in revenge are false problems; Hamlet is under palace arrest, and only by his assumed antic disposition (plan known to Horatio) does he have li - cense to prowl and to spy.

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas TOM TASHIRO 1968

  • And from the complexity and multivalence of their experiences they will continue to provide others with that special kind of entertainment that we call the arts.

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas TOM TASHIRO 1968

  • Dissidence is a symptom of multivalence, a symbol of ideas jockeying for a space in the discourses which conveniently hide a fascist political agenda.

    Kafila 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.