[f. as prec. + -ITY: cf. Fr. élasticité.] The quality of being elastic.
1. In literal sense. Cf. ELASTIC 2, 3.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., III. 175. The External and Internal Ayr were come to the same … Elasticity.
1674. Petty, Dis. Royal Soc., 119. Elasticity is the power of recovering the Figure, upon removal of such Force.
1685. Boyle, Effects of Mot., 111. The Elasticity that Iron, Silver and Brass acquire by hammering.
1721. in Bailey.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., iii. § 3 (1819), 32. By its own elasticity returning … to its former position.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sc., xxv. (1849), 262. The elasticity or tension of steam … varies inversely as its volume.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., ii. (1876), 31. Sufficient stress does not appear to have been laid on the elasticity of the spine.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., II. § 16. 312. The substance, after stretching, being … devoid of that elasticity which would restore it to its original form.
2. fig. a. Energy, vigor, buoyancy of mind or character; capacity for resisting or overcoming depression. Cf. ELASTIC A. 2 b.
1678. Norris, Coll. Misc. (1699), 234. This Spring of my Soul (my Appetitive Faculty) … presses and endeavours with its whole Elasticity.
1728. Pope, Dunc., I. 182. Me emptiness and dulness could inspire, And were my elasticity and fire.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xxi. Nature had given him that elasticity of mind which rises higher from the rebound.
1829. I. Taylor, Enthus., iv. (1867), 72. To break the elasticity of the inventive faculty.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), V. 41. Our old men, who have lost the elasticity of youth.
b. Capacity for being ‘stretched’; expansiveness, flexibility, accommodatingness. Cf. ELASTIC A. 3 b.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., iii. 62. There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact.
1863. J. Murphy, Comm. Gen. iii. 23. Good, evil, life, and death are striking specimens of this elasticity of signification.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 17 Oct., 1/2. ‘Elasticity,’ that is to say, a discretionary issue of bank-notes.
1874. Morley, Compromise (1886), 3. There are some common rules … but their application is a matter of … the widest elasticity.
