GENERALITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does generality mean? 

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

1. an idea or conclusion having general application

2. the quality of being general or widespread or having general applicability

  Familiarity information: GENERALITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GENERALITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An idea or conclusion having general application

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

generalisation; generality; generalization

Context example:

he spoke in broad generalities

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

idea; thought (the content of cognition; the main thing you are thinking about)

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

principle; rule (a basic generalization that is accepted as true and that can be used as a basis for reasoning or conduct)

Derivation:

general (not specialized or limited to one class of things)

general (affecting the entire body)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being general or widespread or having general applicability

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

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

quality (an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone)

Attribute:

general (applying to all or most members of a category or group)

specific ((sometimes followed by 'to') applying to or characterized by or distinguishing something particular or special or unique)

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

commonality; commonness (sharing of common attributes)

pervasiveness (the quality of filling or spreading throughout)

prevalence (the quality of prevailing generally; being widespread)

catholicity; universality (the quality of being universal; existing everywhere)

totality (the quality of being complete and indiscriminate)

Antonym:

particularity (the quality of being particular and pertaining to a specific case or instance)

Derivation:

general (not specialized or limited to one class of things)

general (applying to all or most members of a category or group)

general (affecting the entire body)

 Context examples 

Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality of parties mightn't recover, to say Omer and Joram's compliments, and how do you find yourself this morning? —or this afternoon—as it may be.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

We are not comparing it with Fullerton and Northanger—we are considering it as a mere parsonage, small and confined, we allow, but decent, perhaps, and habitable; and altogether not inferior to the generality; or, in other words, I believe there are few country parsonages in England half so good.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

He got up to ascertain if the door were close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice: My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Catherine began to feel something of disappointment—she was tired of being continually pressed against by people, the generality of whose faces possessed nothing to interest, and with all of whom she was so wholly unacquainted that she could not relieve the irksomeness of imprisonment by the exchange of a syllable with any of her fellow captives; and when at last arrived in the tea-room, she felt yet more the awkwardness of having no party to join, no acquaintance to claim, no gentleman to assist them.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

She now plainly saw that she must not expect a manuscript of equal length with the generality of what she had shuddered over in books, for the roll, seeming to consist entirely of small disjointed sheets, was altogether but of trifling size, and much less than she had supposed it to be at first.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

But I can still read the grey names and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby's hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)