[f. prec. + -ITY.]
1. Technical quality or character; the use of technical terms or methods.
1776. Bentham, Fragm. Govt., Pref. xxxvii. Fiction, tautology, technicality, circuitry, irregularity, inconsistency remain.
1807. J. Foster, Essays, IV. i. 44. And then as to phrases, composed of an uncouth selection and combination of words which are common, and have no degree of technicality,—are they necessary?
1828–32. Webster, Technicalness, Technicality, the quality or state of being technical or peculiar to the arts. Forster.
1857. Toulmin Smith, Parish, 266. The case is a very simple one, when divested of technicality.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., iii. 88. He dilates upon the weapons … with an accurate and professor-like technicality.
2. A technical point, detail, term, or expression; something peculiar or specially belonging to the art or subject referred to. Usually in pl.
1814. Scott, Wav., lii. A sort of martinet attention to the minutiæ and technicalities of discipline.
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 190. Various other technicalities and artistic appliances may also be explained.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), I. vii. 261. To translate the technicalities of Kant into plain English.
1885. S. Cox, Expositions, I. xxxii. 372. This phrase, ‘the Saviour of the world,’ has come to be little more than a technicality, which we use without much thought or emotion.
