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laxity|ˈlæksɪtɪ|
[a. F. laxité, ad. L. laxitātem, f. laxus lax a.]
The quality of being lax.
1. Looseness, irretentiveness (of the bowels, etc.); slackness, want of tension (in the muscular or nervous fibres, etc.).
1528Paynel tr. Reg. Salerni (1535) 119 b, Superfluous drynkynge of cold drynke..causeth the palsey, or laxite of the membres. 1620Venner Via Recta viii. 184 The stomacke..if it be subiect to laxitie. 1672Wisemen Wounds ii. v. 36 There arises a laxity and indigesture in the Wound. 1707Floyer Physic. Pulse-Watch 203 The Laxity of Fibres in the Habit of the Body, or Viscera, is restored by Exercise, Friction, and cold Baths. 1775Johnson Let. to Mrs. Thrale 13 July, In her early state of laxity and feebleness. 1789W. Buchan Dom. Med. (1790) 319 This disease may..proceed from too great a laxity of the organs which secrete the urine. 1799M. Underwood Dis. Childr. (ed. 4) I. 6 The great moisture and laxity of infants.
2. Looseness of texture or cohesion; openness, uncompact structure or arrangement.
1603Holland Plutarch's Mor. 229 The skin..by the closenesse or laxitie thereof, as he drawes it in, or lets it out. 1660Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. xxxvi. 300 The dif-form consistence, as to laxity and compactness of the Air at several distances from us. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. vii. (1693) 25 The former [cause] could never beget Whirl⁓pools in a Chaos of so great a Laxity and Thinness.
3. Looseness or slackness in the moral and intellectual spheres; want of firmness, strictness, or precision.
1623Cockeram, Laxitie, pardon, chiefly cheapnesse. 1656Blount Glossogr., Laxity, looseness, wildness, liberty. 1775Johnson Tax. no Tyr. 20 Every expedition would in those days of laxity have produced a distinct and independent state. 1795Mason Ch. Mus. iii. 187, I need not observe on the laxity of that Version. 1830Scott Demonol. viii. 260 Such laxity of discipline afforded scope to the wildest enthusiasm. 1838J. H. Newman Par. Serm. (1839) IV. ix. 156 All these laxities of conduct impress upon our conscience a vague sense..of guilt. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. ix. II. 422 The very faults of their colleague, the known laxity of his principles. 1858Froude Hist. Eng. III. xvi. 407 Laxity of assertion in matters of number is so habitual as to have lost the character of falsehood. 1865Tylor Early Hist. Man. iv. 77 Carelessness and laxity in articulation. 1870Rogers Hist. Gleanings Ser. ii. 54 Laxity of belief is coupled with laxity of practice. 1875Protests Lords I. Pref. 10 A laxity of language, which must have conveyed far more than the framers of the Act contemplated. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 265 Such tales..engender laxity of morals among the young.
†4. Spaciousness. [A Latinism: cf. lax a. 6.]
1650Fuller Pisgah ii. v. 122 The hills in Palestine generally had in their sides plenty of caves, and those of such laxity and receit that ours in England are but conny⁓boroughs if compared to the palaces which those hollow places afforded. |
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