sociality

English

Etymology

social +‎ -ity, from French socialité or directly from Latin sociālitās (“fellowship, sociality”), from sociālis (“social”), from socius (“companion, ally”) + -ālis.

Noun

sociality (countable and uncountable, plural socialities)

1. The character of being social; sociability
   • 1859, John Stuart Mill, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”, in On Liberty, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], →OCLC, page 86:

     Unless opinions favorable to democracy and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and to competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance of both elements obtaining their due; one scale is sure to go up, and the other down.

2. The quality of an animal kind of being social.
   • 1911, “Ethics”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:

     That the divine will is expressed by it, Cumberland, “not being so fortunate as to possess innate ideas,” tries to prove by a long inductive examination of the evidences of man's essential sociality exhibited in his physical and mental constitution.

   • 1985, James Q. Wilson, Richard J. Herrnstein, Crime & Human Nature, page 524:

     To develop, from a fleeting instant of physical lust, a lifelong community encompassing the whole of the conjoint lives--that has been and is one of the greatest triumphs of sociality in the struggle against the persistent animality of our species.

   • 2018, Taina Bucher, chapter 1, in If … Then, OUP, →ISBN:

     To understand how sociality is programmed—that is, how friendships are programmatically organized and shaped, let us consider the ways in which the platform simulates existing notions of friendship.

3. (in the plural) Social events or entertainments; pleasantries.
   • 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book VII, chapter 66:

     [A]fterwards he had no leisure for the game, and no inclination for the socialities there.

Derived terms

• asociality
• heterosociality
• homosociality
• hypersociality
• parasociality
• unsociality

 

Related terms

• social

Translations

character of being social

• Bulgarian: социалност f (socialnost), общественост (bg) f (obštestvenost)
• Czech: společenskost f

Further reading

• “sociality”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “sociality”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.