Felicity

Forms: 4–6 feli-, felycite(e, -yte, 6–7 felicitie, -ye, (6 Sc. felyscitie, -syte), 5– felicity. [a. OF. felicité (Fr. félicité), ad. L. fēlīcitātem, f. fēlix happy.]

  1.  The state of being happy; happiness (in mod. use with stronger sense, intense happiness, bliss); a particular instance or kind of this.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Clerk’s T., 53. We mighten live in more felicitee.

1441.  Political Poems (Rolls), II. 206.

1552.  Lyndesay, Monarche, 5093. Fairweill all vaine felyscitie!

1602.  Shaks., Ham., V. ii. 358. Absent thee from felicitie awhile.

1651.  Ld. Digby, etc., Lett. conc. Relig., i. 2. I aspire yet to a farr greater felicity, that is, to be made worthy of so brave an appellation.

1722.  Wollaston, Relig. Nat., ix. 217. The injoyment of an humble, but well grounded expectation of felicity hereafter, sincere and durable.

1794.  Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, i. Conjugal felicity and parental duties divided his attention.

1807.  Med. Jrnl., XVII. 541. Sincerely wishing you every felicity.

1839.  Hallam, Hist. Lit. (1855), III. 118. Felicity … consists not in having prospered but in prospering.

  Comb.

1799.  R. Warner, Walk West. Counties (1800), 83. Those felicity hunters, the teazing insects of fashion.

  † b.  Phrases: To have, take felicity in or to with inf.: to take delight or pleasure in or to. To place, set one’s felicity in: to find one’s chief delight in.

1542.  Udall, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 6. Settying his moste delite and felicitee in the veray infamie of the same.

1596.  Spenser, State Irel., Wks. (1862), 517/1. The which Northern Nations finding the nature of the soyle and the vehement heat thereof farre differing from their constitutions, tooke no felicity in that countrey.

1622.  R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 153. A drunkard is unfit for any government, and if I might be hired with many thousands, I would not carry with me a man known to put his felicitie in that vice, instiling it with the name of good fellowship.

1691.  Hartcliffe, Virtues, 7. The more polite and elegant Sort of Men, place their Felicity in Honours.

1758.  Jortin, Erasmus, I. 175. He took a felicity to set out sundry Commentaries upon the Fathers works.

  2.  That which causes or promotes happiness; a source of happiness, a blessing.

c. 1385.  Chaucer, L. G. W., 2588, Hypermnestra. This thought her was felicité.

1490.  Caxton, Eneydos, xxvii. 105. O felycyte merueillouse, wherof I shulde be well happy.

1597.  T. Morley, Introd. Mus., 182. Neuer did miserable vsurer more carefullie keepe his coine, (which is his only hope and felicitie) then I shall these.

1634.  W. Tirwhyt, trans. Letters of Mounsieur de Balzac, 159. Should I shew my selfe a very degenerate Frenchman, if I did not much rejoyce in the happinesse of your Family, since it is a publicke felicitie.

a. 1661.  Fuller, Worthies (1840), I. 211. God bestoweth personal felicities on some far above the proportion of others.

1734.  trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), Pref. 27. A woman who formed his felicity.

1874.  Maurice, Friendship Bks., viii. 221. He also had many felicities he was thankful for.

  3.  Prosperity; good fortune, success. Now rare.

1393.  Gower, Conf., III. 118.

1494.  Fabyan, Chron., VII. 550. It is not possyble for that Kyngedome to stande in felycite.

1533.  Bellenden, Livy, II. (1822), 171. The Faderis and pepill, howbeit thair mindis war rebelland to uthir, faucht with grete felicite aganis the Volschis and Equis.

1652–62.  Heylin, Cosmogr., III. (1673), 7/1. He was with much ado vanquished by the valour and felicity of L. Sylla.

1738.  Neal, Hist. Purit., IV. 274. The old Clergy who had been sequestered for scandal, having taken Possession of their Livings, were intoxicated with their new felicity, and threw off all the restraints they were under before; every week (says Mr. Baxter) produced reports of one or other Clergyman who was taken up by the watch drunk at Night, and mobbed in the Streets.

1780.  J. Harris, Philol. Enq., Wks. (1841), 464. Athens, during the above golden period, enjoyed more than all others the general felicity, for she found in Adrian so generous a benefactor, that her citizens could hardly help esteeming him a second founder.

1865.  Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., V. XV. I. 271. This General’s strategic felicity and his domestic were fatally cut-down.

  † b.  pl. Prosperous circumstances; successful enterprises; successes.

1625.  Bacon, Ess., Adversity (Arb.), 505. The Pencill of the holy Ghost, hath laboured more, in describing the Afflictions of Iob, than the Felicities of Salomon.

1694.  Falle, Jersey, i. 29. The Spaniards: Whose aims at the universal Monarchy were defeated by the Felicities of that Queen.

1706.  Atterbury, Serm. (1740) II. iii. 108. The Felicities of her Wonderful Reign may be complete.

  c.  A stroke of fortune; a fortunate trait (in an individual).

1761.  Hume, Hist. Eng., III. lxi. 326. The easy subduing of this insurrection … was a singular felicity to the protector.

1779–81.  Johnson, L. P., Pope, Wks. IV. 6. It was the felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value.

1861.  Tulloch, Eng. Purit., ii. 284. It was the felicity of Cromwell to detect this gift of government, and turn it to account.

  d.  Singular fortunateness (of an occurrence). Cf. 4.

1809–10.  Coleridge, The Friend (1865), 157. By a rare felicity of accident the same law may apply to two sets of circumstances.

  4.  A happy faculty in art or speech; admirable appropriateness or grace of invention or expression.

1605.  Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. Ded. § 2. Your Maiesties manner of speech is indeed Prince-like, flowing as from a fountaine, and yet streaming and branching it selfe into Natures order, full of facilitie, and felicitie.

1727.  Pope, etc., Of the Art of Sinking in Poetry, 82. Many painters, who could never hit a nose or an eye, have with felicity copied a small-pox.

1833.  Lamb, Elia, Ser. II., Pop. Fallacies (1865), 411. We must pronounce [this pun] a monument of curious felicity.

1873.  Symonds, Grk. Poets, x. 336. Moschus is remarkable for occasional felicities of language.

1876.  J. H. Newman, Hist. Sk., I. II. xii. 295. It is by the invention of a style, which adapts itself with singular felicity to every class of subjects, whether lofty or familiar, philosophical or forensic, that Cicero answers even more exactly to his own definition of a perfect orator than by his plausibility, pathos, and brilliancy.

  b.  A happy inspiration, an admirably well-chosen expression.

1665.  J. Spencer, Vulg. Prophecies, 74. The extempore felicities of the Orators of those times.

1779–81.  Johnson, L. P., Denham, Wks. II. 78. Those felicities which cannot be produced at will by wit and labour.

1870.  Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 176. It is from such felicities that the rhetoricians deduce … their statutes.

  † 5.  Of a planet: A favourable aspect. Obs.

c. 1391.  Chaucer, Astrol., II. § 4. Thei haue a fortunat planete in hir assendent & ȝit in his felicite.

1393.  Gower, Conf., III. 116. And upon such felicite Stant Jupiter in his degre.