[f. as prec. + -TY.] The quality of being fugacious; instability; transitoriness. Of a material substance: Volatility.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Fugacity, a readiness to run away, inconstancy, an inclination to flight.
1666. Boyle, Orig. Formes & Qual., 282. By our Experiment, its Fugacity is so restraind, that not onely the Caput mortuum newly mentiond, endured a good fire in the Retort.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 143, ¶ 3. The deceitfulness of hope, the fugacity of pleasure, the fragility of beauty.
1807. F. Wrangham, Serm. Transl. Script., 31. Considerations of the fugacity of time.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 288. Agardh considers that the acrid principle, which notwithstanding its fugacity, has been lately obtained pure, is no doubt of great power as a stimulant.
184144. Emerson, Ess., Poet (1885), II. 321. The accidency and fugacity of the symbol.
1868. Bushnell, Serm. Living Subj., 281. The fugacities are left behind us.
Comb. 1894. Brit. Jrnl. Photog., XLI. 68. The fugacity-producing quality of this bath.