Also 7 -iety, -ity. [ad. med.L. corporeitās, f. corpore-us: see CORPOREAL and -ITY. Cf. F. corporéité.]
1. The being of the nature of body; the quality of being, or having, a material body.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. I. ii. These paradoxes of their [spirits’] power, corporeity, mortality, taking of shapes.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. ii. 55. The Notion of a Spirit, or substance void of corporeity.
1693. South, Serm., II. 115. God … is as void of Passion, or Affection, as he is of Quantity, or Corporeity.
1836. I. Taylor, Phys. Th. Another Life, 30. It is probable that sensation is the result of corporeity.
1865. Mill, Exam. Hamilton, 358. Corporeity, life, rationality, and any other attributes of man.
b. concr. Bodily substance.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. iii. III. xxvii. How one Form may Inact a various Corporeity.
1660. R. Coke, Justice Vind., 12. The outward Senses apprehend only the corporiety or substance of things represented unto them.
1862. Sat. Rev., XIV. 283/2. Mind and matter, spirit and corporeity.
1884. Plumptre, Spirits in Prison, xvi. (1885), 400. Imagining a subtle attenuated corporeity as investing the soul.
c. Bodily personality; body, person. colloq.
1865. E. Burritt, Walk to Land’s End, 74. The very physical corporeity of a good and pure man commands respect and reverence.
1880. World of Cant, xl. (1885), 313. Ready to dry the dripping corporeity of the saturated saints.
† 2. Earthliness; fleshliness; carnality. Obs.
1653. H. More, Conject. Cabbal. (1713), 50. Moses, having to deal with such Terrestrial Spirits, Sons of Sense and Corporeity.
1681. Glanvill, Sadducismus, I. (1726), 85. Their Imagination is not sufficiently defecated … from the Filth and unclean Tinctures of Corpority.
3. Material or physical nature or state. † Sometimes = Quantity of matter, density (obs.).
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., III. ii. 155. An incomparable eviction of the Corporeity of Magneticall Effluviums.
1673. Phil. Trans., VIII. 6103. Whether the Corporeity of Light would be in hast determin’d by meer Ratiocinations.
1750. trans. Leonardus’ Mirr. Stones, 17. The two Elements, namely Earth and Water, seem to have a greater Corporeity or Density than the other two Elements.
1880. Tyndall, in Fortn. Rev., April, 483. Newton himself pointed out that his views of colours were entirely independent of his belief in the ‘corporiety’ [sic.] of light.
