[ad. F. solidarité, f. solidaire solid: see SOLIDARY a.]
1. The fact or quality, on the part of communities, etc., of being perfectly united or at one in some respect, esp. in interests, sympathies or aspirations.
The French origin of the word is freq. referred to during the period of its introduction into English use.
1848. G. Barmby, in People’s Press, II. 161/1. Solidarity is a word of French origin, the naturalisation of which, in this country, is by no means undesirable.
1848. Gallenga, Italy, 429. Actuated … by a feeling of national solidarity—to borrow a French word—which induced all of them to run the same risk.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, v. 103. One secret of their power is their mutual good understanding…. They have solidarity, or responsibleness, and trust in each other.
1877. Brockett, Cross & Cresc., 157. Each is responsible to the Czar, but they have no sort of solidarity.
transf. 1876. Farrar, Marlb. Serm., xxxii. (1877), 321. Knowing … that there is a solidarity in the virtues as in the vices.
1881. Nature, No. 617. 397. When we thus effect a re-classification of elementary bodies, the solidarity at once breaks down.
b. Const. of (mankind, a race, etc.).
1852. Fraser’s Mag., Jan., 28. We have hived up one of his phrases…—the ‘solidarity of the peoples!’
1853. Trench, Less. Prov., 29. The ‘solidarity’ (to use a word which it is in vain to strive against) of all the nations of Christendom.
1884. S. E. Dawson, Hand-bk. Canada, 107. The grand idea of the solidarity of England and the English race throughout the world.
transf. 1867. M. Arnold, Celtic Lit., 68. The solidarity, to use that convenient French word, of Breton and Welsh poetry.
1876. L. Stephen, Hist. Eng. Th. 18th C., I. 220. Disputing the solidarity of all the writers of Targums.
c. Const. between or with (others). Also transf.
(a) 1860. Marsh, Lect. Eng. Lang., 284. The organs of speech act and react upon each other;… there is, to use a word, which if not now English soon will be, a certain solidarity between them all.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., xvi. II. 310. There was what is called, in modern phrase, solidarity between him and his people.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 67. The solidarity existing between all parts of the lung.
(b) 1862. Grattan, Beaten Paths, II. 378. Would he not have found his best policy … [in] an alliance, if not quite a solidarity, with England?
1865. E. Lucas, in Manning, Ess. Relig. & Lit., 374. To refuse any solidarity whatever with it.
1884. L’pool Mercury, 18 Feb., 5/2. The member for Woodstock … here repudiates all solidarity with his leaders.
2. Community or perfect coincidence of (or between) interests.
1874. Lady Herbert, trans. Hübner’s Ramble, II. ii. (1878), 518. To establish a solidarity between their commercial interests.
1876. A. M. Fairbairn, in Contemp. Rev., June, 138. The cry was raised as to the solidarity of the conservative interests.
1890. Gross, Gild Merch., I. 97. A compact body emphatically characterized by fraternal solidarity of interests.
3. Civil Law. A form of obligation involving joint and several responsibilities or rights.
1875. Poste, Gaius, III. 396–7. Correality and Solidarity agree in this, that in both of them every creditor is severally entitled to receive the whole object of the active obligation, and every debtor is bound to discharge the whole object of the passive obligation.
