[f. next + -ITY.] The quality or state of being vulnerable, in various senses.
1808. Han. More, Cœlebs, ix. I. 108. For fear, however, that your heart of adamant should hold out against all these perilous assaults, its vulnerability was tried in other quarters.
1864. Reader, 31 Dec., 825/1. Up to the last, however, the self-blinded rulers of China refused to believe in their vulnerability.
1869. Reed, Our Iron-Clad Ship, xi. 253. This report also bears testimony to the vulnerability of the low decks.
b. spec. in Path. (see quot. 1880).
1880. A. Flint, Princ. Med., 92. The term vulnerability has been, of late, applied to a condition of the system favorable for the morbific operation of any causes, either ordinary or specific.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 176. A fact which points to the existence of a special vulnerability of this part of the lung itself.
