Literary notes about Tenuity (AI summary)
The term "tenuity" is employed with a dual sense of literal thinness and metaphorical fragility, enriching a work’s imagery and depth. It is often used to evoke a sense of ephemeral delicateness, whether describing the almost imperceptible nature of physical matter—as in the depiction of a nebulous, gossamer thread ([1], [2], [3])—or highlighting the fragile, fleeting quality of thought and creative spirit ([4], [5]). In scientific and poetic contexts alike, "tenuity" serves to illustrate conditions of extreme refinement or insubstantiality, from the delicate structure of cosmical substances to the airy, subtle constructs of language and emotion ([6], [7]). This versatile use thus bridges concrete and abstract realms, drawing the reader’s attention to the interplay between substance and subtlety.
- “In ‘Words for music,’ ... a mild and rather wordy mysticism sometimes bears poetic fruit in verse of a pleasing, gossamer-like tenuity.” + — Nation.
— from The Cumulative Book Review Digest, Volume 1, 1905Complete in a single alphabet by Various - Because of the extreme tenuity of watery vapours , the density of which is less than that of atmospheric air .
— from The Reason Why A Careful Collection of Many Hundreds of Reasons for Things Which, Though Generally Believed, Are Imperfectly Understood by Robert Kemp Philp - Comets consist of cosmical matter which exists in a condition of extreme tenuity, and especially so in the coma and tail.
— from The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' by Thomas Nathaniel Orchard - With all Shelley’s splendid imagery and colour, I find a sort of tenuity in his poetry.”
— from Tennyson and His Friends - What is it for a man to set his thoughts on sublunary things but, as it were, a tenuity of mind?
— from The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric, in the Original Anglo-Saxon, with an English Version. Volume I. by Abbot of Eynsham Aelfric - The ether is the ultimate refinement of matter, a body of extreme tenuity that pervades the whole universe and permeates all grosser bodies.
— from King Solomon's Goat by George Willard Bartlett - The sense of solidity is combined with the ideas of expansion and tenuity in the term.
— from A Handbook of Freethought Containing in Condensed and Systematized Form a Vast Amount of Evidence Against the Superstitious Doctrines of Christianity
