FELICITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does felicity mean? 

• FELICITY (noun)
  The noun FELICITY has 2 senses:

1. pleasing and appropriate manner or style (especially manner or style of expression)

2. state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy

  Familiarity information: FELICITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FELICITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Pleasing and appropriate manner or style (especially manner or style of expression)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

felicitousness; felicity

Hypernyms ("felicity" is a kind of...):

appropriateness (the quality of being specially suitable)

Attribute:

felicitous (exhibiting an agreeably appropriate manner or style)

infelicitous (not appropriate in application; defective)

Antonym:

infelicity (inappropriate and unpleasing manner or style (especially manner or style of expression))

Derivation:

felicitate (express congratulations)

felicitous (exhibiting an agreeably appropriate manner or style)

Sense 2

Meaning:

State of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

felicity; happiness

Hypernyms ("felicity" is a kind of...):

emotional state; spirit (the state of a person's emotions (especially with regard to pleasure or dejection))

Attribute:

happy (enjoying or showing or marked by joy or pleasure)

unhappy (experiencing or marked by or causing sadness or sorrow or discontent)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "felicity"):

beatification; beatitude; blessedness (a state of supreme happiness)

radiance (an attractive combination of good health and happiness)

Derivation:

felicitous (marked by good fortune)

 Context examples 

Harriet is my superior in all the charm and all the felicity it gives.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

She knew enough to feel secure of an honourable and speedy establishment, and her imagination took a rapid flight over its attendant felicities.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Most unwilling was she to awaken from such a dream of felicity to comprehend all the unhappy truths which attended the affair; and for some time she refused to submit to them.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

A short period of exquisite felicity followed, and but a short one.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

So often as she had heard them wish for a ball at home as the greatest of all felicities!

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

He was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three quarters old, of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and generally victorious.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

His audacities of phrase struck him as grotesque, his felicities of expression were monstrosities, and everything was absurd, unreal, and impossible.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, where Mr. Dick continued his copying in a state of absolute felicity.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

What felicity it is to hear a tune again which has made one happy!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)