Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of velleity.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Over and over again, when reading newspaper articles full of pompous words borrowed from Latin through French, when wearied with 'velleities' and 'solidarities' and 'altruisms' and

    The Letters of Cassiodorus Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator Senator Cassiodorus 1872

  • Has he ever taken the risk of parting ways with left-wing velleities?

    Latin America 2010

  • Has he ever taken the risk of parting ways with left-wing velleities?

    European Union 2009

  • Has he ever taken the risk of parting ways with left-wing velleities?

    Canada 2009

  • All the highest aspirations of the, early human race, its noblest religious temper, its most idealistic velleities of thought are summed up in this single vocable.

    Arya means an effort or an uprising and overcoming Tusar N Mohapatra 2007

  • All the highest aspirations of the, early human race, its noblest religious temper, its most idealistic velleities of thought are summed up in this single vocable.

    Archive 2007-11-01 Tusar N Mohapatra 2007

  • The reasons given by the industrialist associations of Germany for retaining possession of Belfort as indispensable for the preservation of their country against our ideas of revenge are the same as those of Barrés exacting Mayence to protect us against the velleities of invasion by the Boches.

    Time Regained 2003

  • And when the resident English bring the batteries of English political action to bear upon any of the bulwarks erected to protect the natives against their encroachments, the executive, with their real but faint velleities of something better, generally find it safer to their parliamentary interest, and at any rate less troublesome, to give up the disputed position than to defend it.

    Representative Government 2002

  • These venerable ladies had admitted that in marrying, even opulently, out of the family, Emma had once more shown velleities of self-sacrifice.

    The Collectors Frank Jewett Mather

  • To study the original Chinese text is to pass as it were into the secret recesses of the Japanese brain, and to find in that darkened chamber a whole world of things which advertise ambitions mixed with limitations, hesitations overwhelmed by audacities, greatnesses succumbing to littlenesses, and vanities having the appearance of velleities.

    The Fight for the Republic in China Bertram Lenox Simpson 1903

Comments

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  • '-And so the conversation slips

    Among velleities and carefully caught regrets

    Through attenuated tones of violins

    Mingled with remote coronets

    And begins.'

    -Portrait of a Lady, by T.S. Eliot

    February 19, 2008

  • very small pleasures. I came across the word in TS Eliot's "Portrait of a Lady":

    "--And so the conversation slips

    Among velleities and carefully caught regrets

    Through attenuated violins

    Mingled with remote regrets

    And begins."

    April 3, 2009