fitnessn.

1574 J. Baret Aluearie F 576 Ablenesse, fitnesse, handsomnesse. Habilitas.

1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. vi. 10 Competent to shew their conueniencie and fitnesse.

a1616 W. Shakespeare All's Well that ends Well (1623) ii. ii. 27 Haue you, I say, an answere of such fitnesse for all questions? View more context for this quotation

1749 D. Hartley Observ. Man ii. ii. 158 The Harmonies, and mutual Fitnesses, of visible things.

1783 E. Burke Rep. Affairs India in Wks. (1842) II. 11 His fitness for the supreme council.

1845 R. C. Trench Fitness Holy Script. iii. 59 Every other man has..fitnesses for one task rather than for another.

1875 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues (ed. 2) IV. 132 Their fitness as instruments of thought to express facts.

a1935 T. E. Lawrence Mint (1955) ii. xxii. 158 So I dodge the last weeks of depot training and the orgy of fitness-tests with which it closes.

1939 Ann. Reg. 1938 100 The ‘fitness’ campaign which had recently been launched.

1648 W. Lyford Transl. Sinner 3 Not because of our works, or fitnesse, or betternesse of disposition in us.

1745 J. Wesley Answer to Rev. Church 36 No Fitness is required at the Time of communicating.

1858 J. Martineau Stud. Christianity 332 To insist..on a mere moral fitness.

1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. vii. 13 In things the fitnes whereof is not of it selfe apparent.

1623 W. Shakespeare & J. Fletcher Henry VIII ii. iv. 228 The Queene being absent, 'tis a needfull fitnesse, That we adiourne this Court till further day. View more context for this quotation

1785 W. Cowper Task v. 672 Make him hear Of rectitude and fitness.

1820 Ld. Byron Let. 21 Feb. (1977) VII. 43 Their system has it's rules—and it's fitnesses—and decorums.

1706 S. Clarke Disc. Nat. Relig. 52 They [the Hobbists] have no way to show how Compacts themselves come to be obligatory, but by inconsistently owning an eternal original Fitness in the thing it self.

1730 M. Tindall Christianity old as Creation 357 His [God's] Commands are to be measured by the antecedent Fitness of Things.

1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones II. iv. iv. 20 The Rule of Right, and the Eternal Fitness of Things . View more context for this quotation

1749 Lady Luxborough Let. 29 Nov. in Lett. to W. Shenstone (1775) 148 My writing a Postcript after so long a letter is not according to the fitness of things... [Note] Be it known, these words thus applied are fashionable.

1885 Manch. Examiner 15 Sept. 4/7 Mr. Slagg..showed a characteristic sense of the fitness of things by confining his attention [etc.].

1831 P. Matthew On Naval Timber & Arboriculture 385 In such immense waste of primary and youthful life, those only come forward to maturity from the strict ordeal by which Nature tests their adaptation to her standard of perfection and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction.

1859 C. Darwin Origin of Species xiv. 472 Nor ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not..absolutely perfect; and if some of them be abhorrent to our ideas of fitness.]

1865 H. Spencer Princ. Biol. I. iii. xii. 455 The survival of the fittest must nearly always further the production of modifications which produce fitness.

1894 H. Drummond Lowell Lect. Ascent of Man vi. 264 The object of the Survival of the Fittest is to produce fitness... It produces fitness by killing off the unfit.

1983 J. R. S. Fincham Genetics xviii. 529 Fitness, in the Darwinian sense used in population genetics, means merely the ability to leave fertile progeny.

1913 L. J. Henderson Fitness of Environment p. v Darwinian fitness is compounded of a mutual relationship between the organism and the environment. Of this, fitness of environment is quite as essential a component as the fitness which arises in the process of organic evolution.

1930 R. A. Fisher Genetical Theory Nat. Selection ii. 46 The vital statistics of an organism in relation to its environment provide a means of determining a measure of the relative growth-rate of the population, which may be termed the Malthusian parameter of population increase... The Malthusian parameter will in general be different for each different genotype, and will measure the fitness to survive of each... The rate of increase of fitness of any species is equal to the genetic variance in fitness.]

1953 Symp. Soc. Exper. Biol. 7 112 Fitness for survival cannot be completely defined except as applied to a ‘unit of evolution’... The fitness of such a unit is its probability of leaving descendants after a given long period of time.

1955 T. Dobzhansky Evolution, Genetics & Man vi. 122 Adaptive value, or Darwinian fitness, is not the same thing as bodily strength, vigor, or bravery.

1960 D. S. Falconer Introd. Quantitative Genetics ii. 26 Individuals..contribute different numbers of offspring to the next generation. The proportionate contribution of offspring to the next generation is called the fitness of the individual.

1973 B. J. Williams Evol. & Human Origins xiv. 257/2 If we remember to stick to our definition of fitness as Darwinian fitness, it becomes apparent that advances in medical genetics have improved the fitness of those who suffer from PKU.

1983 J. R. S. Fincham Genetics xviii. 530 AA homozygotes have a fitness of 1 and aa and Aa both have fitnesses of 1—s.