felicity

See also: Felicity

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fəˈlɪsɪti/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪsɪti

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French felicité, from Latin fēlīcitās (“fertility, fruitfulness; happiness, felicity; good fortune; success”), from fēlix (“happy; blessed, fortunate, lucky; fertile, fruitful; prosperous; auspicious, favourable”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to nurse, suckle”).

Noun

felicity (countable and uncountable, plural felicities)

1. (uncountable) Happiness.

   Antonym: infelicity

   • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter I, in Mansfield Park: A Novel. In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for T[homas] Egerton, […], OCLC 39810224, page 2:

     […] Mr. and Mrs. Norris began their career of conjugal felicity with very little less than a thousand a year.

   • 1862, George Long, translation of Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book V:

     For two reasons then it is right to be content with that which happens to thee; the one, because it was done for thee and prescribed for thee, and in a manner had reference to thee, originally from the most ancient causes spun with thy destiny; and the other, because even that which comes severally to every man is to the power which administers the universe a cause of felicity and perfection, nay even of its very continuance.

2. (uncountable) An apt and pleasing style in speech, writing, etc.
3. (uncountable, semiotics, semiology) Reproduction of a sign with fidelity.

   The quotation was rendered with felicity.

4. (countable) Something that is either a source of happiness or particularly apt.
   • 2007 August 7, Joshua Ferris, “Table for two”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     The season’s main attraction, the felicities of the sun, dimmed in the light of our competition and our growing friendliness.

Derived terms

• felicific
• felicitate
• felicitation
• felicitous

 

Translations

happiness — see happiness

apt and pleasing style in speech, writing, etc.

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 得體 (zh), 得体 (zh) (détǐ)

• Esperanto: feliĉego
• French: félicité (fr) f
• Greek: ευδαιμονία (el) f (evdaimonía)

• Italian: felicità (it) f
• Portuguese: felicidade (pt) f
• Romanian: fericire (ro) f
• Spanish: felicidad (es)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Translations to be checked

• French: ^{(please verify)} félicité (fr)

• Italian: ^{(please verify)} felicità (it)

Further reading

• felicity (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia