[a. F. attitude, ad. It. attitudine (1) fitness, adaptation, (2) disposedness, disposition, posture:—med.L. aptitūdin-em fittedness, fitness, n. of quality f. aptus fitted, fit: see APTITUDE. Originally a technical term of the Arts of Design, substituted for the earlier aptitude c. 1710; thence extended into general use.]
1. In Fine Arts: The ‘disposition’ of a figure in statuary or painting; hence, the posture given to it. (Now merged in 2.)
1668. J. E[velyn], trans. Freart’s Perf. Peinture, Advt., Though we retain the words, Action and Posture … the tearm Aptitude [F. attitude] is more expressive. And it were better to say the Disposition of a Dead Corps than the Posture of it, which seems a Tearm too gross; nor were it to speak like a Painter, to say, this Figure is in an handsome Posture, but in a graceful Disposition and Aptitude [F. attitude]. The Italians say Attitudine.
1686. Aglionby, Paint. Illustr., iii. 107. The Painter must also vary his Heads, his Bodies, his Aptitudes.
1695. Dryden, Dufresnoy’s Art of Painting, § 4. The business of a painter in his choice of attitudes [Dufresn. posituræ].
1705. Addison, Italy, 340. The several Statues that we see with the same Air, Posture, and Aptitudes.
1718. Prior, Ded. Ld. Dorset. Bernini would have taken His Opinion upon the Beauty and Attitude of a Figure.
1721. in Bailey.
1755. in Johnson: the only sense.
2. A posture of the body proper to, or implying, some action or mental state assumed by human beings or animals. To strike an attitude: to assume it theatrically, and not as the unstudied expression of action or passion.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 153. He took the two men and put them in the same attitude.
1775. Harris, Philos. Arrangem. (1841), 346. These various positions peculiar to animal bodies, and to the human above the rest, (commonly known by the name of attitudes).
1832. Ht. Martineau, Each & All, i. 4. She stood with her arms by her side in the attitude of waiting.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. vi. 121. He stands in the Oriental attitude of prayer.
1883. J. Gilmour, Mongols, xviii. 211. You will find him … striking pious attitudes at every new object of reverence.
b. fig. Of inanimate things, conceptions, etc.
1744. Akenside, Pleas. Imag., I. 30. The gayest, happiest attitude of things.
1750. Johnson, Rambl., No. 96, ¶ 10. To copy the mien and attitudes of Truth.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. iv. The remainder [of his sentences] are in quite angular attitudes, buttressed-up by props (of parentheses and dashes).
3. Settled behavior or manner of acting, as representative of feeling or opinion.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. ii. II. 20. In the Senate house again, the attitude of the Right Side is that of calm unbelief.
1876. Green, Short Hist., vi. § 2 (1882), 278. That the misrule had been serious was shown by the attitude of the commercial class.
4. Attitude of mind: deliberately adopted, or habitual, mode of regarding the object of thought.
1862. H. Spencer, First Princ., I. i. § 1. 4. Much depends on the attitude of mind we preserve while listening to, or taking part in the controversy.
1832. Trevelyan, in Life Macaulay (1876), I. v. 254. With regard to our Eastern question the attitude of his own mind is depicted in the passage on Burke.
1881. Athenæum, No. 2811. 328/1. A necessary accompaniment of the allegorical attitude of the mind.
