Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Slenderness; thinness; tenuity.
  • noun Fineness; refinement.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare Smallness; meagerness; slenderness; fineness, thinness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Thinness, smallness; a shrunken or meagre condition.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin exilitatem, from exilis ‘exile’.

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Examples

  • But from exility of bones, thinness of skulls, smallness of teeth, ribs, and thigh-bones, not improbable that many thereof were persons of minor age, or woman.

    Hydriotaphia, or Urn-burial 2007

  • -- "His aim," said Brutus, "was to be admired as an _Attic_ Orator: and to this we must attribute that accurate exility of style, which he constantly affected."

    Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. Marcus Tullius Cicero

  • It is with great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction.

    English literary criticism Various

  • Thank God, a "Southern literature," in the sense intended by the champions of slavery, is a simple impossibility, rendered such by that exility of mind which they demand in its producers as a prerequisite to admission into the guild of Southern authorship.

    The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It 1857

  • Would our feeble eyes, therefore, become stronger -- would our narrow views of things be enlarged -- should we be better capacitated to understand his projects -- could we with more certitude divine his plans, enter into his designs -- would our exility of judgment be competent to measure his wisdom, to follow the eternal order he has established?

    The System of Nature, Volume 2 Paul Henri Thiry Holbach 1756

  • In defiance Of the exility of the effect which these notions produce oil the greater number, even of those who say they are, or who believe themselves persuaded, they are held forth as the most powerful rampart that can be opposed to the irregularities of man.

    The System of Nature, Volume 1 Paul Henri Thiry Holbach 1756

  • So many princes fail to enjoy true happiness only, because their feeble, narrow souls, are obliged to act in a sphere too extensive for their energies: it is thus that by the supineness, the indolence, the incapacity of their chiefs, nations frequently pine in misery; are often submitted to masters, whose exility of mind is as little calculated to promote their own immediate happiness, as it is to further that of their miserable subjects.

    The System of Nature, Volume 1 Paul Henri Thiry Holbach 1756

  • It is with great propriety that subtilty, which, in its original import, means exility of particles, is taken, in its metaphorical meaning, for nicety of distinction.

    Lives of the Poets, Volume 1 Samuel Johnson 1746

  • It is with great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction.

    Lives of the English Poets : Waller, Milton, Cowley Samuel Johnson 1746

  • But from exility of bones, thinness of skulls, smallness of teeth, ribs, and thigh-bones, not improbable that many thereof were persons of minor age, or woman.

    Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend 1643

Comments

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  • 1819 H. Busk Vestriad iv. 313 His exility of snout.

    September 21, 2014