vastity
English edit
Etymology edit
vast + -ity, from Middle French vastité or its source, Latin vastitas. Compare Middle English wastite.
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈvɑːstɪti/, /ˈvɑːstəti/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈvæstɪti/, /ˈvæstəti/
Noun edit
vastity (countable and uncountable, plural vastities)
- (obsolete) Emptiness or desolation.
- 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section 2, member 4, subsection vii:
- Leo Decimus was so much bewailed in Rome after his departure, that […] all good fellowship, peace, mirth, and plenty died with him, tanquam eodem sepulchro cum Leone condita lugebantur; for it was a golden age whilst he lived, but after his decease an iron season succeeded […], wars, plagues, vastity, discontent.
- Vastness.
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:, II.12:
- there is no […] soule so skittish and stubborne, that hath not a feeling of some reverence in considering the clowdy vastitie and gloomie canapies of our churches […].