[ad. F. socialité (It. socialità) or L. sociālitas: see SOCIAL a. and -ITY.]
1. The state or quality of being social; social intercourse or companionship with one’s fellows, or the enjoyment of this.
a. 1649. in N. & Q., Ser. I. X. 357. Socialitie becometh the person of the gravest man, soe as he neglect not the due consideration of time, place, and persons.
1658. Phillips, Sociality, fellowship, company.
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. iv. § 1. 420. The Pleasures of Sociality and Mirth.
1775. Mme. D’Arblay, Early Diary (1889), II. 94. The Dean is a man of drollery, good humour, and sociality.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., vii. The good Lord kissed the wine-cup by way of parenthesis, remarking, that sociality became Scottish gentlemen.
a. 1881. A. Barratt, Phys. Metempiric (1883), Pref. p. ix. It was thought that at Oxford he gave many hours to whist and innocent sociality.
b. With pl. A social act or function.
1825. Lamb, Elia, II. Wedding. In the participated socialities of the little community, I lay down for a brief while my solitary bachelorship.
1867. Geikie, Mem. E. Forbes, xiv. 498. Another winter passed pleasantly away. Not, however, without its socialities, its soirées and dinners.
1891. [J. F. Fuller], in Blackw. Mag., CL. 358/2. The socialities of life—if I may coin a word—require for their satisfactory working a certain amount of ignorance.
c. Contrasted with sociability: Social intercourse in its formal or conventional aspect.
1871. Mrs. H. Wood, Red Court Farm, ix. 128. Conscious of his own deficiency on the score of sociality, (not sociability) and fashion.
1897. Westm. Gaz., 13 Feb., 2/3. She must be content with the ‘sociality.’ One hopes it will not degenerate into ‘sociability.’
2. The action or fact on the part of individuals a society or of associating together; the disposition, impulse or tendency to do this.
(a) 1775. G. White, Selborne, lxvi. There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation.
1834. McMurtrie, Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 429, note. This is precisely the case with the burrowing wasps…. Their sociality is of no higher order than that which exists amongst the inhabitants of the same street in large towns.
(b) 1839. I. Taylor, Theory Another Life (1847), II. 22. The basis of … communion or sociality among intelligent orders.
1847. Grote, Greece, II. ix. III. 16. That regulated sociality which required the control of individual passion from every one.
1899. Fiske, Through Nature to God, II. ix. 105. But as soon as sociality became established, and Nature’s supreme end became the maintenance of the clan organization.
3. Companionship or fellowship in or with some thing or person.
1806. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, I. 5. My only remaining solace,—that of sociality in sorrow and complaint.
1831. I. Taylor, in Edwards, Freedom Will, Pref. p. xxxvii. Fatalism … takes its place along with the truths of other exact sciences and should maintain sociality with them.
1863. J. G. Murphy, Comm., Gen. xxv. 1–11. Wedlock and the Sabbath, the fountain-heads of sociality with man and God.
