Levity

Origin

Old French levité = Italian levità, < Latin levitātem, levitās, < levis light

• 1564

Definitions

• 1: a. As a physical quality: The quality or fact of having comparatively little weight; lightness.
• 2: b. In pre-scientific physics, regarded as a positive property inherent in bodies in different degrees, or varying proportions, in virtue of which they tend to rise, as bodies possessing gravity tend to sink.
• 3: Lightness in movement; agility.
• 4: As a moral or mental quality, in various senses.

a. Want of serious thought or reflexion; frivolity.

b. Incapacity for lasting affection, resolution, or conviction; heedlessness in making and breaking promises; instability, fickleness, inconstancy.

c.‘Light’ or undignified behavior; unbecoming freedom of conduct (said esp. of women); an instance of this.

d. Lightness (of spirit), freedom from care. Obs.

1631 John Donne Serm. (1959) IV. 83 To what a blessed levity, (if without levity we may so speake) to what a cheerefull lightnesse of spirit is he come, that comes newly from Confession.

Antonym

• Gravity