Obs. [ad. L. curvitās (or a. F. curvité, Oresme 14th c.), f. curvus curved, crooked.]
1. Curved or bent quality or state; curvature; a curved portion of anything, a curve.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, cviii. 41. A backe the which may have many infirmities, as debylytie, and wekenes, curvytie and gybbositie.
1656. Hobbes, Six Lessons, Wks. 1845, VII. 253. The rectitude or curvity of the lines.
1705. Phil. Trans., XXV. 2062. The divers flexures and curvities of the Serpent.
1715. Machin, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), I. 269. [I] have added a rule for finding the curvity.
1831. Brewster, Newton (1855), I. iii. 42. According to their more or less curvity.
2. fig. Moral obliquity, crookedness of conduct.
1616. Brent, trans. Sarpi’s Counc. Trent (1676), 166. The whole nature of man … remained crooked; not by the curvity of Adam, but by his own.
1675. Baxter, Cath. Theol., I. II. 82. We cannot deny but that 1. There is as much positivity of Relation in disobedience as in obedience, in curvity as in rectitude.
1678. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, III. 136. That God be the motor … of the action … but not of the obliquitie or curvitie in acting.
