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What is the difference between quiddity and quality?

quiddity | quality |

Quality is a coordinate term of quiddity.



As nouns the difference between quiddity and quality

is that quiddity is the essence or inherent nature of a person or thing while quality is level of excellence.

As an adjective quality is

being of good worth, well made, fit for purpose.

quiddity

Noun

(quiddities)
  • (philosophy) The essence or inherent nature of a person or thing.
  • * 1822 , October, (Charles Lamb), The Old Actors'', published in ''London Magazine , section on “Mr. Munden” ( ebook):
  • A tub of butter, contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity . He stands wondering, amid the commonplace materials of life, like primæval man, with the sun and stars about him.
  • * 1962 , (Vladimir Nabokov), Pale Fire :
  • My vision reeked with truth. It had the tone,
    The quiddity and quaintness of its own
    Reality.
  • * 1978 , (Lawrence Durrell), Livia'', Faber & Faber 1992 (''Avignon Quintet ), p. 352:
  • He represented my quiddity I suppose – the part which, thanks to you, has converted a black pessimism about life into a belief in cosmic absurdity.
  • (legal) A trifle; a nicety or quibble.
  • An eccentricity; an odd feature.
  • Synonyms

    * (essence) nature, quintessence, whatness

    Derived terms

    * quidditative

    Coordinate terms

    * (essence) quality

    See also

    *

    quality

    English

    Noun

  • (uncountable) Level of excellence
  • This school is well-known for having teachers of high quality .
    Quality of life is usually determined by health, education, and income.
  • *
  • (countable) A property or an attribute that differentiates a thing or person.
  • One of the qualities of pure iron is that it does not rust easily.
    While being impulsive can be great for artists, it is not a desirable quality for engineers.
    Security, stability, and efficiency are good qualities of an operating system.
  • *
  • (archaic) High social position. (See also the quality.)
  • A peasant is not allowed to fall in love with a lady of quality .
    Membership of this golf club is limited to those of quality and wealth.
  • (uncountable) The degree to which a man-made object or system is free from bugs and flaws, as opposed to scope of functions or quantity of items.
  • (thermodynamics) In a two-phase liquid–vapor mixture, the ratio of the mass of vapor present to the total mass of the mixture.
  • (emergency medicine, countable) The third step in OPQRST where the responder investigates what the NOI/MOI feels like.
  • To identify quality try asking, "what does it feel like?".

    Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "quality": high, good, excellent, exceptional, great, outstanding, satisfactory, acceptable, sufficient, adequate, poor, low, bad, inferior, dubious, environmental, visual, optical, industrial, total, artistic, educational, physical, musical, chemical, spiritual, intellectual, architectural, mechanical.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Coordinate terms

    * (a property that differentiates) quiddity

    Derived terms

    (quality) * human quality * industrial quality * quality time * quality of life * the quality, the Quality * total quality management * qualitative

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Being of good worth, well made, fit for purpose.
  • We only sell quality products.
    That was a quality game by Jim Smith.
    A quality system ensures products meet customer requirements.
  • * Harriet (a Cambridge University student), quoted in John Ahier, John Beck, Rob Moore, Graduate Citizens?: Issues of Citizenship and Higher Education , Routledge (2003), ISBN 978-0-415-25722-0, page 114:
  • I mean a lot of the money that obviously goes into universities and their libraries and their facilities and their academics and stuff but I mean I haven’t had a very quality degree to be honest. I think the quality of my education has been crap . . .
  • * 2004 , Vance M. Thompson, MD, in J. Kevin Belville and Ronald J. Smith (editors), LASIK Techniques: Pearls and Pitfalls , SLACK Incorporated, ISBN 978-1-55642-622-3, page 187:
  • For one I wanted to have what I considered a very quality tracking device.
  • * 2008 , Carl Erskine, in Fay Vincent, We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved , Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-1-4165-5342-7, page 144:
  • A very quality ball club; that was the Braves.

    Derived terms

    * qualityness