emacity

English

Etymology

Latin emacitas.

Noun

emacity (uncountable)

1. Desire or fondness for buying
   • 1653, Thomas Urquhart, Logopandecteision, quoted in The Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart, published 1834, page 332:

     …in some measure I descend to the fashion of the shop-keepers, who to scrue up the buyer to the higher price, will tell them no better can be had for mony, ’tis the choicest ware in England, and if any can match it, he shall have it for nought. ¶ So in matter of this literatorie chaffer, I…went on in my laudatives, to procure the greater longing, that an ardent desire might stir up an emacity, to the furtherance of my proposed end.

   • 1805, Richard Graves, The triflers. To which is added, The rout, also The farmer's son, →OL, page 37:

     By which means he had contracted such an habitual emacity, as Pliny calls it (or propensity to purchase every thing that we see) especially if it strikes our fancy, under the idea of being cheap or a great bargain, that after he had accomplished his purpose, for which he attended those repositories of damaged furniture, he still persevered in purchasing what he did not want; and at a sale by hand, I saw the reverend Dr. ascend, "ab inferis", from the infernal regions of the kitchen and the scullery, with a basting ladle in one hand, and a gridiron in the other; so that in short, after his wife* died and he returned to reside in collage, his house was found full from the cellar to the garret, with empty barrels, chairs and tables; beds and chests of drawers, enough to furnish one of the largest lodging houses in Bath.

   • 1945, Marjorie Williams, Lady Luxborough Goes to Bath‎^[1], B. Blackwell, published 1946, →LCCN, →OL, page 46:

     He laughed at people who contracted habits of ‘emacity’ and found they must accumulate, and yet he confessed that he himself had a desire to collect pictures and for that purpose often attended auctions in Bath, where, in proportion to its extent, he thought there were more sales than in London.

   • 2009, William Penn, Love in the Time of Flowers, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, →OL, page 161:

     But they had not as yet entirely resisted the energetic sellers’ ubiquitously busy hawking, having bought with a surrender to emacity disciplined in spite of excellent purchasing power and no worrisome creditors at their heels, two or more little inessential gauds and bouquet garni from one and the other boutiques and kiosks….

Further reading

• N[athan] Bailey (1721) “EMACITY”, in An Universal Etymological English Dictionary: […], London: […] E. Bell, J. Darby, […], →OCLC, column 1.