[ad. L. contiguitās, or F. contiguité (17th c. in Littré), f. L. contigu-us, F. contigu: see prec. and -ITY.]
1. The condition of touching or being in contact.
1641. Wilkins, Math. Magick, II. iv. (1648), 175. There being not the least contiguity or dependence upon any body.
1671. J. Webster, Metallogr., iv. 66. The heat is increased by the contiguity of many grains lying one upon another.
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, II. ii. 110. It might have been contiguous to other Parts of our great Continent … though that Contiguity be since broken off.
1842. W. Grove, Corr. Phys. Forces (ed. 6), 28. Communicating expansion to all bodies in contiguity with it.
b. fig. Of non-physical contact.
a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., v. 160. A mere kind of apposition or contiguity of our natures with the divine.
1654. Codrington, Hist. Ivstine, 509. A woman, who by the contiguitie of blood had neer relation to the King.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 305. It related, with a wondrous new contiguity and perpetual closeness, the Past and Distant with the Present in time and place.
c. Psychol. Proximity of impressions or ideas in place or time, as a principle of association.
Law of Contiguity: the principle that ‘Actions, Sensations, and States of Feeling, occurring together, or in close succession, tend to grow together, or cohere, in such a way that when any of them is afterwards presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea’ Bain, Mental & Moral Sc. (1868), 85.
1739. Hume, Treatise, I. § 4. The qualities from which this association arises, and by which the mind is after this manner convey’d from one idea to another, are three, viz: Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect.
1785. Reid, Intell. Powers, IV. iv. According to [Hume’s] philosophy … contiguity must include causation.
1829. Jas. Mill, Anal. Hum. Mind, I. 79. Contiguity of two sensations in time means the successive order.
1838. Sir W. Hamilton, in Reid’s Wks., 294/2, note. Aristotle’s reduction is to the four following heads:—Proximity in time—Contiguity in place—Resemblance—Contrast.
1868. Bain, Ment. & Mor. Sc., 85. The principle of Contiguity has been described under various names, as Hamilton’s law of ‘Redintegration’; the ‘Association of Ideas,’ including Order in Time, Order in Place, Cause and Effect.
† 2. concr. A thing in contact; a contiguous thing, point, surface, etc. Obs.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. i. 53. It [crystall] hath not its determination from circumscription or as conforming unto contiguities.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., II. 93. Particles of Air that lurk ’twixt the Contiguities of the Glass and Quicksilver. Ibid., II. 132. Creeping up ’twixt the Contiguity of the Glass and Quicksilver.
3. quasi-concr. A continuous mass, whereof all the parts are in uninterrupted contact.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 2. Some boundless contiguity of shade.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 47. The general picture was a contiguity of red, earthen roofs. Ibid. (a. 1864), Amer. Note-bks. (1879), II. 46. Among the contiguity of trees.
4. loosely. Close proximity, without actual contact.
[1656. Blount, Glossogr., Contiguity, nearness, the close being of two together.]
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), I. II. 334. Called the Faro or strait of Messina from its contiguity to that city.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 690. Its contiguity to the West India islands gives the merchants superior advantages.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, xiv. There were two which stood in such close contiguity, that they seemed to have been portions of the same rock, which … now exhibited a chasm of about four feet.
1874. Lyell, Elem. Geol., xvi. 248. The contiguity of land may be inferred … from these vegetable productions.
