Quiddity vs Quillet - What's the difference?
quiddity | quillet |
(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” (
* 1962 , (Vladimir Nabokov), Pale Fire :
* 1978 , (Lawrence Durrell), Livia'', Faber & Faber 1992 (''Avignon Quintet ), p. 352:
(legal) A trifle; a nicety or quibble.
An eccentricity; an odd feature.
A quibble, an evasive distinction.
* 1602 , (William Shakespeare), , act.V sc.1
*:Where be his quiddities now - his quillets , his cases, his tenures and his tricks?
*, NYRB, 2001, vol.1, p.327-8:
*:Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoonsintrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precinct of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner.
A small plot of land; historically: a strip of land that together with others like it formed a larger field.
As nouns the difference between quiddity and quillet
is that quiddity is (philosophy) the essence or inherent nature of a person or thing while quillet is a quibble, an evasive distinction or quillet can be a small plot of land; historically: a strip of land that together with others like it formed a larger field.quiddity
English
(wikipedia quiddity)Noun
(quiddities)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.
- My vision reeked with truth. It had the tone,
- The quiddity and quaintness of its own
- Reality.
- 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.