[f. as prec. + -TY.] The quality of being fugacious; instability; transitoriness. Of a material substance: Volatility.

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1656.  Blount, Glossogr., Fugacity, a readiness to run away, inconstancy, an inclination to flight.

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1666.  Boyle, Orig. Formes & Qual., 282. By our Experiment, its Fugacity is so restrain’d, that not onely the Caput mortuum newly mention’d, endured a good fire in the Retort.

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1751.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 143, ¶ 3. The deceitfulness of hope, the fugacity of pleasure, the fragility of beauty.

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1807.  F. Wrangham, Serm. Transl. Script., 31. Considerations of the fugacity of time.

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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.

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1841–44.  Emerson, Ess., Poet (1885), II. 321. The accidency and fugacity of the symbol.

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1868.  Bushnell, Serm. Living Subj., 281. The fugacities are left behind us.

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  Comb.  1894.  Brit. Jrnl. Photog., XLI. 68. The fugacity-producing quality of this bath.

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