thinglinessn.

1662 J. Chandler tr. J. B. van Helmont Oriatrike xi. 69 That man was ignorant of the thingliness [L. quidditatem] of a Gas..and..of the properties of cold in the Air.

1662 J. Chandler tr. J. B. van Helmont Oriatrike 343 The essential thingliness of a thing.

1913 C. Rahn Relation of Sensation to Other Categories Contemp. Psychol. 94 It is this last ‘non-sensory’ aspect of the experience of perceiving..that is of special interest to us. Here we are face to face with the problem of the thingliness of things of the philosophers.

1925 Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. 36 519 Different phenomenal configurations possess different phenomenal properties by which they may be distinguished, e.g., such general differences in clearness, persistence, ‘thingliness’, and impressiveness as are denoted by the concept of figure-ground.

1974 Jrnl. Aesthetic Educ. 8 89 Dewey rejects inquiry into the thingliness of a thing because such inquiry both resurrects the speculative ghosts of the substance theory of things and falls outside his scientifically based methodology.

2004 P. Dove Catastrophe of Modernity iv. 190 The statue's association with the ideal notwithstanding, the poem also underscores its object quality or ‘thingliness’.