meliority

English edit

Etymology edit

From Latin melioritas, from melior. See meliorate.

Noun edit

meliority (uncountable)

(obsolete) The state or quality of being better; melioration.
- 1597, Francis [Bacon], “Of the Colours of Good and Evill, a Fragment”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland […], published 1632, →OCLC:
  [M]en are accuſtomed after themſelues & their ovvne faſhion, to incline vnto them vvhich are ſofteſt, and are leaſt in their vvay, in deſpight and derogation of them, that hold them hardeſt to it. So that this colour of meliority and preheminence is of a ſigne of eneruation and weakneſſe.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “meliority”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)