Forms: 4 ablete, 5 abilite, habylite, 5–6 abletee, abilte, habilite, 6 habilitye, abilite, -ti, abylyte, abilyte, abylite, 6–7 habilitie, hability, abilitie, 7– ability. [a. OFr. ableté:—L. habilitāt-em, n. of quality f. habilis: see ABLE and -TY. The Fr. was in 4–5 refashioned after L., as habilité, habileté, and was followed by the Eng., though the initial h was probably never sounded, and after a long struggle on the part of scholars like More, Ascham, Sidney, Hooker, Bacon, Browne, etc., to preserve this written link with L., it finally disappeared before 1700.]
† 1. Suitableness, fitness, aptitude. Obs.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Of Confessions, Wks. 1880, 331. If his ablete shulde be proued … before he were accepted.
1430. Lydgate, Chron. Troy, II. xvii. She entre maye the relegyon Of myghty Bachus for habylite.
1509. Fisher, Eng. Wks., 290. Grete abletees of nature to noble dedes.
1570. Dee, Math. Præf., 18. Skillfull hability, also, for any occasion or purpose.
1622. Fotherby, Atheomastix, II. i. § 6. 181. The habilitie and capacitie of the matter.
1678. Marvell, Def. John Howe, Wks. 1875, IV. 187. A faculty conserved … includes no such hability and present promptitude in itself to action.
2. The quality in an agent which makes an action possible; suitable or sufficient power (generally); faculty, capacity (to do or of doing something).
c. 1391. Chaucer, Astrolabe, 1. I have perceived well by certeyne evidinces thine abilite to lerne sciences.
c. 1535. More, Debell. Salem & Byzance, Wks. 1557, 1000/1. Yf the onely power and hability to fain, wer a cause sufficient.
1551. Robinson, trans. More’s Utopia, 13. Though I be of muche lesse habilitie to do any thinge.
1570–87. Holinshed, Scot. Chron. (1806), II. 340. We are not of habilitie … to indure sa greit and intollerabil panis.
1594–1600. Hooker, Serm., iii. Wks. 1617, 729. Furnished with habilitie to annoy.
1605. Timme, Quersitanus, I. iv. 13. The which habilitie of taking forme is in the subject.
1636. Healey, Cebes, 156. A better Hability to have goodnesse infused into them.
1651. Life of Father Sarpi (1676), 19. The fame of his prudence and hability of government.
1711. F. Fuller, Medic. Gymn., 11. The Body of Man … acquires by frequent Motion an Ability to last the longer.
1860. Tyndall, Glaciers, II. § 17. 323. Its [The glacier of the Rhone] ability to expand laterally is increased.
b. The action itself, a thing within one’s ability.
1602. Shaks., Oth., III. iii. 2. Be thou assur’d, good Cassio, I will do All my abilities in thy behalfe.
c. Power to do a thing of legal validity; capacity in law.
1528. Perkins, Prof. Booke (1642), iii. § 193. 86. Such persons are of ability in law to take liverie of seisin by force of feoffments of other men of abilities in law to make feoffments.
1649. Selden, Laws of Eng. (1739), I. xxxvi. 55. The Canonists had in those days brought into custom other ages of ability in matters concerning Marriage.
3. Bodily power; strength. (Still common in Scotland.)
1549. J. Olde, trans. Erasmus on Ephes., II. 6. I being (as concerning myne owne habilitie) feble and weake, am by his benefite strong and full of courage agaynst the stormes of al mischiefes.
1576. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 211. To lift a great stone easily Which before divers Lay persons could not stirre with all their strength and abilitie.
1607. Topsell, Four-footed Beasts (1673), 137. Impudently begging and complaining of bodily weakness where is no want of ability.
1622. Wither, Motto ‘Nec Habeo’ (1633), 520. I have not found ability so much To carry milstones.
4. Pecuniary power; wealth, estate, means. Obs. exc. in a few phrases in which ‘to give’ is perhaps always mentally added.
1502. Arnold, Chron., 84. Where as diuers periured fremen of smale abylite haue vsed and daily vse, to bye clothe and other marchaundises of England.
1526. Tindale, Acts xi. 29. Every man accordinge to his habilite.
1580. Baret, Alvearie, To be of abilitie: to liue like a gentleman. What abilitie or liuing is he of? or what may he dispende a yeere?
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., III. iv. 378. Out of my lEane and low ability Ile lend you something: my having is not much.
1665. Manley, trans. Grotius’s Low Countrey Warres, 817. Upon most the fine exceeded their ability.
1729. Burkitt, On New Test., Luke ii. 24. She was to bring a lamb of a year old for a burnt offering, in case she was a person of ability.
1766. Goldsmith, Vicar, xiv. A draught upon my neighbour was to me the same as money; for I was sufficiently convinced of his ability.
5. Mental power or capacity; talent, cleverness.
1604. Shaks., Oth., III. iii. 247. Though it be fit that Cassio haue his Place For, sure, he fills it vp with great Ability.
1604. T. Wright, Passions of the Mind, V. iii. 177. If a man haue not a good naturall habilitie, it is impossible by art to come to any perfection.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., i. 6. The brain is not so figur’d as is requisite for wit and hability.
1794. Sullivan, View of Nat., II. 154. A late ingenious writer, who has evidently studied his subject with ability and precision.
1858. Buckle, Civiliz., I. vii. 427. La Fayette was no doubt inferior to Condorcet in point of ability.
1878. M. L. Holbrook, Hygiene of the Brain, 3. The comparative ability of men is also an interesting subject.
6. A special power of the mind, a faculty. (Usually in plural.)
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xv. 237. Euery abilitie thereof is in … the body, as much in one part as in another, as a whole soule in euery part; notwithstanding that euery seueral abilitie thereof seeme to be seuerally in some particuler member … as the sensitiue ability seemeth to rest in the head, the irefull in the heart, and [the] quickning in the liuer.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 179. All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes.
1651. Hobbes, Leviathan, I. viii. 32. Such abilityes of the mind, as men praise.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & Fall, I. xiii. 267. His abilities were useful rather than splendid.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 130/1. Their natural abilities, combined with excellent taste.
