vertibility

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) By surface analysis, vertible +‎ -ity.

Noun

vertibility (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) inconstancy, changeability
   • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.:

     But ye are ſo full of vertibilite,
     And of frenetyke folabilite,
     And of melancoly mutabilite,
     That ye would coarte and enforce me
     Nothing to write, but hay the gy of thre,
     And I to ſuffre you lewdly to ly
     Of me with your language full of vilany!

   • 1969, reissued 2006, Martin Luther, trans. E. Gordon Rupp, “Erasmus’ Definition of Free Choice” in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, page 170:

     It would be more correct to speak of “vertible choice” or “mutable choice,” in the way in which Augustine and the Sophists after him limit the glory and range of the word “free” by introducing the disparaging notion of what they call the vertibility of free choice.