[f. next: see -ITY. Cf. F. expansibilité.] The quality of being expansible: a. superficially; b. in volume; c. in non-material senses.
a. 1755. in Johnson.
1890. Nature, 2 Jan., 205/2. The extreme expansibility of oil when floating upon the water.
b. 1701. Grew, Cosmol. Sacra, I. iii. § 19. 14. [In] Atoms of all Fluids, there is some difference in Bulk…: For else, all Fluids wou’d be alike in … Expansibility.
1778. Phil. Trans., LXVIII. 462. A greater expansibility in the air enclosed in their Manometers.
1873. W. Lees, Acoustics, III. i. 81. The expansibility of platinum and glass is nearly the same.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Expansibility, applied to the condition of an organ which allows of erection.
c. 1857. National Mag., II. 277. Proofs … of the expansibility of human nature.
1882. Spectator, 8 April, 455. The infinite expansibility of House of Commons loquacity.
