[f. as prec. + -ITY.]
1. The quality of being (merely) verbal; that which consists of mere words or verbinge.
1645. Bp. Hall, Peace-Maker, 23. That it may appeare, this controversie hath in it more verbality then matter.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., I. x. 42. He will seem to be charmed with words of holy Scripture, and to flye from the letter and dead verbality.
1661. Feltham, Resolves, I. iii. 181. Let men be never so specious in the formall profession and Verbalities of Religion.
1721. Bailey, Verbality, a being Verbal.
1816. J. Gilchrist, Philos. Etym., 251. Verbality is the covering which such quack philosophers as Kant and Stewart put over their poor, naked, false theories. Ibid. (1826), Lecture, 45, note. I know of nothing so much calculated to reduce it [sc. Scripture] to a mere mass of verbality.
2. pl. Verbal expressions or phrases.
1840. New Monthly Mag., LX. 316. I recollect … the glorious emanations … of my author—but I cannot remember the intoxicating verbalities wherein he clothes them.
3. The quality appropriate to a verb.
1884. trans. Lotze’s Logic, 26. The forms of substantivity, adjectivity, and verbality.
