Fixedness

[f. as prec. + -NESS.]

  1.  The quality or condition of being fixed in various senses. a. Of material things: Immobility, steadiness of position, stillness, permanence.

1641.  Bp. Hall, Serm., in Rem. Wks. (1660), 66. The Heavens or any part of them never stood still, but once, since they were made; but the Earth was made for fixednesse, and stability.

1647.  H. More, Song of Soul, III. 1. xxxiii.

a. 1711.  Ken, Hymnotheo, Poet. Wks. 1721, III. 170.

1812–6.  J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, II. 448. From the beauty and fixedness of the colours of many of the metallic oxides, they are used as pigments in painting in oil and water-colours.

1845.  Maurice, Mor. Phil., in Encycl. Metrop., 590/1. The Eleatic ‘fixedness,’ which was the formal opposite of the Heracleitan ‘flux,’ served the purpose of the deceiver equally well.

1859.  O. W. Holmes, Prof. Breakf.-t, xii. 274. By the stillness of the sharpened features, by the blankness of the tearless eyes, by the fixedness of the smileless mouth, by the deadening tints, by the contracted brow, by the dilating nostril, we know that the soul is soon to leave its mortal tenement, and is already closing up its windows and putting out its fires.

  b.  Of immaterial things: Definiteness, invariability. Of persons and their attributes: Firmness, resoluteness, steadfastness (in); steadfast adherence to (a cause); intentness, attentiveness.

1612–5.  Bp. Hall, Contempl., O. T., XX. x. The fixednesse of his terme, is no less mercie than the protraction.

1680.  R. Mansel, Narr. Popish Plot, 12. A person whose fixedness to the true Interest of his Majesty … they well knew.

1784.  J. Brown, Hist. Brit. Churches, I. 110. In council, she [Mary I.] solemnly declared, that notwithstanding her fixedness in her own religion, she would compel none to it, but by the preaching of God’s word.

1813.  Examiner, 709/2. The fixedness of her despair.

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. VII. v. All hearts set, with a moody fixedness, on one object.

1863.  G. Eliot, Romola, I. xv. He was looking at her with mild fixedness while he spoke, and again she felt that subtle mysterious influence of a personality by which it has been given to some rare men to move their fellows.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), V. 122, Laws, Introduction. The great defect of both his [Plato’s] constitutions is the fixedness which he seeks to impress upon them.

  † 2.  The quality of resisting the action of heat, or of being non-volatile. Obs.

1665.  Hooke, Microgr., 28. The Proprieties of Gold (such as are the Malleableness, Weight, Colour, Fixtness in the Fire).

1764.  Heberden, in Phil. Trans., LV. 58. The natron liquefies in a very gentle heat: it resembles the vegetable alkali in taste and fixedness, and like that is used in making soap and glass.

1812–6.  J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, II. 365. The fixedness of platina admirably fits it for crucibles, and many other chemical utensils, which may be made thinner of this than of any other material whatever.