[ad. med.L. actuālitātem, f. actuāl-is. See ACTUAL and -ITY; cf. mod. Fr. actualité (‘a neologism.’ Littré).]
† 1. Capacity of action, activity. Obs.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VIII. xvi. (1495), 323. The sonne hath moost actualyte and vertue of werkinge.
1647. H. More, Song of the Soul, II. ii. III. v. Yet falls she down at last and lowly lies … sleep doth seise her actualities.
1677. Gale, Crt. of Gentiles, III. 122. God, by reason of his infinite actualitie, permits nothing but what he wils.
2. The state of being actual or real; reality, existing objective fact.
1675. J. Howe, Living Temple, Wks. 1834, 34/2. An infinite possibility on the part of the creature … and a proportionable infinite actuality of power on the Creator’s part.
1775. J. Harris, Philos. Arrangem. (1841), 365. That there are things existing in act, in reality, in actuality, (call it as you please,) we have the evidence both of our senses and of our internal consciousness.
1847. Lewes, Hist. Philos. (1867), I. 313. Which passed from possibility into actuality.
1848. Ruskin, Mod. Painters, I. II. 1. vii. § 15, 90. To sacrifice a truth of actuality to a truth of feeling.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr., XIV. iii. (1864), IX. 136. Universals are real only in God but … in potentiality rather than in actuality.
3. pl. Actual existing conditions or circumstances.
1665. Glanville, Sceps. Sci., 42. These distinct possibilities are founded upon distinct actualities.
1832. Coleridge, Table Talk, 5 April, 168. The public mind, which substitutes its own undefined notions or passions for real objects and historical actualities.
1852. Grote, Greece, IX. II. lxix. 34. To look at the actualities of the present and take measure of what is best to be done for the future.
1876. M. Davies, Unorthod. Lond., 250. His words would therefore be few, and directed to the actualities of the case.
4. Realism in description.
1850. Merivale, Hist. Rom. Emp. (1865), VIII. lxiv. 83. It invests traditions and legends with the hard colouring of modern actuality.
1879. W. E. Henley, in Academy, 5 April, 298/1. Some of the characters grouped about her have a flavour of actuality.
