[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being adaptive; the capacity or tendency to adapt one thing to another, or oneself to circumstances.
1863. J. C. Jeaffreson, Everard’s Dau., xiii. 221. The man had … a subtle adaptiveness as well as sincere desire to please.
1878. C. Stanford, Symb. Christ, vi. 172. The Saviour’s words have minutely particular adaptiveness to every moment of the soul’s history.
1879. Carpenter, Ment. Physiol., I. ii. § 70. 74. The adaptiveness of the movements is no proof of the existence of consciousness.
