Definitions

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

  • noun The condition or property of being solid.
  • noun Soundness of mind, moral character, or finances.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or property of being solid.
  • noun The absolute impenetrability attributed by some metaphysicians to matter.
  • noun Fullness of matter: opposed to hollowness.
  • noun Massiveness; substantiality; hence, strength; stability.
  • noun Strength and firmness in general; soundness; strength; validity; truth; certainty.
  • noun In geometry, the quantity of space occupied by a solid body.
  • noun A solid body or mass.

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

  • noun The state or quality of being solid; density; consistency, -- opposed to fluidity; compactness; fullness of matter, -- opposed to openness or hollowness; strength; soundness, -- opposed to weakness or instability; the primary quality or affection of matter by which its particles exclude or resist all others; hardness; massiveness.
  • noun Moral firmness; soundness; strength; validity; truth; certainty; -- as opposed to weakness or fallaciousness.
  • noun (Geom.) The solid contents of a body; volume; amount of inclosed space.

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

  • noun The state or quality of being solid.
  • noun Moral firmness; validity; truth; certainty.
  • noun geometry The solid contents of a body; volume; amount of inclosed space.

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

  • noun the consistency of a solid
  • noun the quality of being solid and reliable financially or factually or morally
  • noun state of having the interior filled with matter

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin soliditās

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Examples

  • Only I have thought the term solidity the more proper to express this idea, not only because of its vulgar use in that sense, but also because it carries something more of positive in it than impenetrability; which is negative, and is perhaps more a consequence of solidity, than solidity itself.

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • The result of not being able to appreciate this, is that the finiteness of our sense, caused by its dependence on Motion for excitation, surrounds us with illusions; one of these illusions is what we call solidity or continuity of sensation.

    Science and the Infinite or Through a Window in the Blank Wall Sydney T. Klein 1893

  • But one reason for that solidity is that the General has something of a weight problem.

    Just In: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze 2010

  • But you also get the sense that this solidity is like a sheen of oil floating on water; an acre wide and an atom deep, and beneath that surface there is nothing he really cares about more than himself.

    November 2004 2004

  • And since the arrival of Robbie's letter there had come a certain solidity and reality to that visionary bond.

    Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago Margaret 1891

  • Lady Clara Augusta Mandeville, then, was a widow of some three or four-and-thirty, an age fatal to all mere prettiness, but an age at which all women of sterling beauty are in the full-blown radiance of their charms; their mind, too, if it possess any solidity, is then in full maturity; there is a glow of summer richness, which yet does not touch on autumn.

    Zoe: The History of Two Lives 1845

  • When the idea of solidity is excited a part of the extensive organ of touch is compressed by some external body, and this part of the sensorium so compressed exactly resembles in figure the figure of the body that compressed it.

    Canto III 1803

  • The impressions, which enter by the sight and hearing, the smell and taste, are affirmed by modern philosophy to be without any resembling objects; and consequently the idea of solidity, which is supposed to be real, can never be derived from any of these senses.

    A Treatise of Human Nature David Hume 1743

  • The impressions, which enter by the sight and hearing, the smell and taste, are affirm'd by modern philosophy to be without any resembling objects; and consequently the idea of solidity, which is suppos'd to be real, can never be deriv'd from any of these senses.

    A treatise of human nature 1739

  • The impressions, which enter by the sight and hearing, the smell and taste, are affirmed by modern philosophy to be without any resembling objects; and consequently the idea of solidity, which is supposed to be real, can never be derived from any of these senses.

    A Treatise of Human Nature 1739

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