levity

English

WOTD – 23 July 2012    

Etymology

Coined in 1564, from Latin levitas (“lightness, frivolity”), from levis (“lightness (in weight)”).

Cognate to lever.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA: /ˈlɛ.vɪ.ti/, X-SAMPA: /"lE.vI.ti/

Noun

levity (usually uncountable; plural levities)

1. Lightness of manner or speech, frivolity
2. (obsolete) Lack of steadiness
3. The state or quality of being light, buoyancy
   • F. Scott Fitzgerald
   • Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I had feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity...
   • Robert Montgomery Bird:

     […] it would really seem as if there was something nomadic in our natures, a principle of levity and restlessness […]

   • 1869 Mary Somerville, On Molecular and Microscopic Science 1.1.12:

     Hydrogen ... rises in the air on account of its levity.

4. (countable) A lighthearted or frivolous act
   • 1665, Daniel Defoe, History of the Plague in London^[1]:

     For though it be something wonderful to tell that any should have hearts so hardened, in the midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal, yet certain it is that all sorts of villainies, and even levities and debaucheries, were then practiced in the town as openly as ever: I will not say quite as frequently, because the number of people were many ways lessened.

   • 1872, J. Fenimore Cooper, The Bravo^[2]:

     […] or do the people joy less than common in their levities?"

   • 1882, H.D. Traill, Sterne^[3]:

     His incorrigible levities had probably lost him the countenance of most of his more serious acquaintances […] .

Antonyms

• gravity

Translations

lightness of manner or speech

• Czech: lehkovážnost (cs) f
• Estonian: kerglus
• Finnish: kepeys (fi), kevytmielisyys (fi)

• French: nonchalance, légèreté
• Irish: éadroime (ga) f
• Portuguese: leveza

lack of steadiness — see instability

state or quality of being light

• Finnish: keveys (fi)

lighthearted or frivolous act

• Finnish: kevytmielisyys (fi), päähänpisto (fi)

References