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▪ I. mobility1|məʊˈbɪlɪtɪ| [a. F. mobilité, ad. L. mōbilitās, f. mōbilis: see mobile and -ity.] 1. a. Ability to move or to be moved; capacity of change of place; movableness. (Sometimes enumerated among the properties of matter.) Also, facility of movement.
1490Caxton Eneydos xv. 57 Wherby arose one euylle goddesse callyd fame or renommee, whiche..by mobylite vygorouse encreaseth her forse in rennynge. c1500More Wks. {fatpara} iiij, I am Eternitee... Thou mortall Tyme..Art nothyng els but the mobilite, Of sonne and mone chaungyng in euery degre. a1639Wotton Surv. Educ. in Reliq. (1651) 318 A rod or barre of iron..by the help of a corke..being ballanced in water, or in any other liquid substance where it may have a free mobility, will bewray a kind of unquietude. 1669Boyle Absolute Rest in Bodies §2 The Epicureans..ascribing to every particular Atom an innate, and unlooseable mobility, or rather, an actual motion. 1688Norris Theory Love i. ii. 18 The two eminent Propertys of matter, viz. that of receiving various Figures, and that of Motion or Mobility. 1727Arbuthnot Tables Anc. Coins, etc. 244 The Romans had the advantage..by the Bulk of their Ships, and the Fleet of Antiochus in the Swiftness and Mobility of theirs. 1792Phil. Trans. LXXXII. 221 The thermometers I employed had not a sufficient mobility for very nice experiments. 1794G. Adams Nat. & Exp. Philos. IV. xlix. 347 Of all that are known in the universe, the mobility of the matter of light is the greatest. 1837Brewster Magnet. 322 The mobility of the needle is diminished. 1841― Martyrs Sci. 97 Paul Anthony Foscarinus..wrote a pamphlet in which he illustrates and defends the mobility of the earth. b. Of the limbs or organs of the body: Freedom of movement; absence of fixity or rigidity; occas. liability to be abnormally displaced.
1528Paynell Salerne's Regim. (1541) 115 The .ii. cause [of over-much bleeding] is mobilitie of the arterie,..for woundes with out rest can nat heale. 1688Boyle Final Causes Nat. Things ii. 55 Nature not having given that mobility to the eyes of flies. 1831R. Knox Cloquet's Anat. 165 All that the former [sc. the tarsus] has gained with respect to size and solidity, it appears to have lost with reference to mobility. 1872T. G. Thomas Dis. Women (ed. 3) 59 In estimating the effects of direct pressure upon the position of the uterus, its extreme mobility must be constantly borne in mind. 1876Bernstein Five Senses 24 All organs adapted for touching are endowed with the greatest mobility. 1881Mivart Cat 54 The mobility of the spinal column in different regions. c. Of persons: Ability to move about. spec. in Sociol. the possibility of movement between different social levels that exists in a society (vertical mobility); also the possibility of movement to different fields of employment or interest, or to new areas, within the same social level (horizontal mobility).
1777Johnson Let. to Mrs. Thrale 29 Sept., Mrs...grows old, and has lost much of her undulation and mobility. 1779Ibid. 16 Oct., But I am told how well I look; and I really think I get more mobility. 1900Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. VI. 377 (caption) Mobility of type. 1927P. A. Sorokin Social Mobility ii. vii. 136 The intensiveness of the vertical mobility may be measured in the same way in the field of the political and occupational stratifications. Ibid. 160 Horizontal mobility, in spite of the great importance of the problem, is not an object of this study. 1938T. H. Marshall Class Conflict 111 The use of mobility as an excuse for inequality is usually associated with a measure of self-deception. 1956C. W. Mills Power Elite xv. 349 Only if the criteria of the top positions were meritorious..could we smuggle merit into such statistics of mobility. 1965B. B. Wolman Handbk. Clin. Psychol. xxxiv. 979 While mobility has been frequently related to schizophrenia, R. Freedman..failed to find positive correlation between high mobility and high hospital admission rates of schizophrenics. 1972S. Cotgrove Sci. of Society (rev. ed.) vii. 230 Restricted mobility facilitates the protection of privileges by a stratum and the development and persistence of a unitary culture. d. Physics. Of a fluid: Freedom of movement of its particles.
1817Faraday Exp. Res. ii. 6 The actual relative mobilities of the gases are inversely as their specific gravity. 1830Herschel Stud. Nat. Phil. 232 The perfect mobility of their [sc. liquids] parts among one another. 1871Tyndall Fragm. Sci. (1879) I. x. 311 The mobility of hydrogen..being far greater than that of air. e. transf. and fig. of immaterial things.
1866Rogers Agric. & Prices I. iv. 108 Labour, on which so many circumstances are now conferring mobility and expansion. 1889Spectator 12 Oct., It is within the province of the State to promote the mobility of labour and capital. f. Chem. and Physics. [tr. G. beweglichkeit (given this specific sense by F. Kohlrausch 1876, in Nachrichten von d. K. Ges. d. Wissensch. und d. G.-A.-Universität zu Göttingen 17 May 220).] The degree to which a charge carrier undergoes movement in a definite direction in response to an electric field, now usu. expressed as the average speed (in cm. per second) in a field of one volt per cm. divided by the net number of charges on the carrier.
1895C. S. Palmer tr. Nernst's Theoret. Chem. ii. vii. 315 The term mobility (Beweglichkeit) or velocity of transport will mean..the velocity with which 1 g.-ion will be transported under the influence of a pull of 1, e.g. 1 kilogram weight. Ibid. 316 If we denote the mobility of the positive and negative ions by U and V, then their respective velocities will be in the same ratio as their mobilities. Ibid. 317 The conductivity of a solution of a binary electrolyte is greater in accordance as it contains more free ions, and according as these have a greater mobility. 1912Jrnl. Chem. Soc. CI. ii. 1276 The following figures..are the results of the chief researches on the mobility of the hydrogen ion... All values are expressed in terms of the reciprocal ohm. 1924J. R. Partington in H. S. Taylor Treat. Physical Chem. I. xi. 539 The equivalent conductance at infinite dilution is the sum of the mobilities of anion and kation at a given temperature. 1946[see carrier 1 k (ii)]. 1950W. J. Moore Physical Chem. xv. 434 With two exceptions, the ionic mobilities in aqueous solutions do not differ as to order of magnitude, being all around 6 × 10–4 cm2 sec.–1 volt–1. The exceptions are the hydrogen and hydroxyl ions with the abnormally high mobilities of 36·2 × 10–4 and 20·5 × 10–4. 1963B. Fozard Instrumentation Nucl. Reactors ii. 15 In a uniform electric field the electrons and ions may be regarded as acquiring a uniform drift velocity which is superimposed upon their kinetic motion and directed towards the electrodes [of the ionisation chamber]... The term mobility may be used to indicate the ease with which ions may be caused to drift. 2. a. Ability to change easily or quickly; liability to fluctuation; changeableness, instability; fickleness.
1567Fenton Trag. Disc. i. 19 b, [There is not] any so greate a paterne or example of her [sc. fortune's] mobitie [1579 mobility], as they that fynde often chaunge of estate. 1656Blount Glossogr., Mobility, moveableness, changeableness, inconstancy. a1676Hale Prim. Orig. Man. iv. vii. 356 We cannot choose but daily observe in our selves a strange mobility and instability in our Imaginative and Intellective Faculty. 1829I. Taylor Enthus. iv. (1867) 75 In the conformation of the heretic by temperament, there is more of intellectual mobility than of strength. 1873Hamerton Intell. Life ix. iv. (1875) 315 The mobility of fashionable taste. 1884tr. Lotze's Metaph. 8, I do not ignore the many valuable results that are due to this mobility of imagination. b. Of a person: The condition of being easily moved; excitability.
1824Byron Juan xvi. xcvii, So well she acted all and every part By turns—with that vivacious versatility, Which many people take for want of heart. They err—'tis merely what is call'd mobility. [Note, In French ‘mobilité’. I am not sure that mobility is English.] 1837C. Lofft Self-formation II. 225, I had not the excitable spirit, the mobility, to use their own term, of our French neighbours. 1870Huxley Lay Serm. ii. 27 Women are, by nature, more excitable than men—prone to be swept by tides of emotion,..and female education does its best to weaken every physical counterpoise to this nervous mobility. c. Of the features: Facility of change of expression.
1845E. Holmes Mozart 298 Mozart's physiognomy was remarkable for its extreme mobility. The expression changed every moment. 1872J. H. Gladstone Faraday ii. 89 That wonderful mobility of countenance. 1884Graphic 4 Oct. 357 A mouth with a sympathetic mobility about it. 3. Mil. Of a field force and its equipment: The quality of being able to move rapidly from one position to another.
1866E. B. Hamley Operat. War vi. i. 316 Mobility and the mutual support of all arms,..were now on the side of the French. 1871C. H. Owen Mod. Artillery iii. iii. 329 Other means have been taken to give field batteries the greater mobility now required on some occasions. 1894Ld. Wolseley Life Marlborough I. 89 A new and well-ordered mobility and a facility of manœuvre was taught. ▪ II. mobility2|məʊˈbɪlɪtɪ| [f. mobile n.2, mob n.1, after nobility.] The mob; the lower classes.
1690Dryden Don Sebast. iv. iii, She singled you out with her Eye, as commander in Chief of the Mobility. 1695Hickeringill Lay-Clergy Wks. 1716 I. 321 No wonder then that the mobility did run a madding, when Oppressions will make the Nobility and Wise Men mad. 1774Foote Cozeners i. (1778) 24, I don't mean for the mobility only;..the best people of fashion ar'n't ashamed to follow my Doctor. 1823Byron Juan xi. xix. note, The select mobility and their patrons. 1843Blackw. Mag. LIII. 79 They are as easily to be distinguished..from the children of the mobility, as is a well-blooded Arabian from a Suffolk punch. |