a. Also spacial. [f. L. spati-um SPACE sb.1 + -AL.]
1. Having extension in space; occupying or taking up space; consisting of or characterized by space.
1847. Whewell, Philos. Induct. Sci., II. 447. We contemplate objects as made up of spatial parts.
1862. J. W. Draper, Intell. Devel. Europe, iv. (1865), 85. All is composed of points or spacial units, which, taken together, constitute a number.
1863. J. G. Murphy, Comm., Gen. i. 20. The expanse is here proved to be aerial or spatial; not solid.
1886. A. Weir, Hist. Basis Mod. Europe (1889), 474. An independent spatial world, with minds and matter moving about in it.
2. Of, pertaining, or relating to space; subject to, or governed by, the conditions of space. Chiefly Metaph. and opposed to temporal.
α. 1857. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sci. (ed. 3), I. 351. There are properties of bodies, of the most intimate kind, which involve such spatial relations as are exhibited in the Regular Solids.
1865. J. Grote, Moral Ideals (1876), 188. If we translate the consideration of the mind from spatial to temporal language.
1875. Cayley, in Phil. Trans., CLXV. 675. If … we imagine the spatial distribution as made over an indefinitely thin layer or stratum.
1886. A. Weir, Hist. Basis Mod. Europe (1889), 481. Ideas possessed of an ineradicable persistence which have been formed from a vast quantity of temporal and spatial experience.
β. 1871. Fraser, Life Berkeley, x. 364. A mathematical or spacial conception of what is real.
a. 1881. A. Barratt, Phys. Metempiric (1883), 107. A temporal principle of unity does exist, but a spacial does not.
3. Happening or taking place in space; caused or involved by space.
1866. W. R. Alger, Solitudes Nat. & Man, III. 123. Spatial separation is not spiritual independence.
a. 1870. Sir J. Herschel, in Proctor, Other Worlds, xii. 276, note. One of the arguments advanced in favour of the spatial extinction of light.
1888. Linnean Soc. Jrnl., XX. 232/2. Spatial segregation does not depend upon diversity in the qualities and powers of the organism.
4. Of faculty or sense: Apprehending or perceiving space or extension.
1886. Encycl. Brit., XX. 54/1, note. The sensibility of our ‘spatial sense.’
1886. Sidgwick, Hist. Ethics, i. 9. To investigate the origin of the spatial faculty.
Hence Spatiality, spatial character, quality or property. Spatialization, the fact of making spatial or investing with spatial qualities or relations.
1882. B. P. Bowne, Metaphysics, 209. All forms of external experience are not alike calculated to awaken the mind to react with a spatialization of its objects.
1887. Mind, Jan., 10. The existence of the vague form … of spatiality.
1890. A. Seth, Scot. Philos. (ed. 2), iii. 98. Elements which do not already include the fact of spatiality.
