different between levity vs lightness

English

Etymology

Coined in 1564, from Latin levit?s (“lightness, frivolity”), from levis (“lightness (in weight)”). Cognate to lever, and more distantly, light.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?l?.v?.ti/

Noun

levity (usually uncountable, plural levities)

1. Lightness of manner or speech, frivolity; lack of appropriate seriousness; inclination to make a joke of serious matters.
2. (obsolete) Lack of steadiness.
3. The state or quality of being light, buoyancy.

   • Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity […]

   • 1838, Robert Montgomery Bird, Peter Pilgrim

     […] it would really seem as if there was something nomadic in our natures, a principle of levity and restlessness […]

   • 1869, Mary Somerville, On Molecular and Microscopic Science 1.1.12:

     Hydrogen […] rises in the air on account of its levity.

4. (countable) A lighthearted or frivolous act.

Antonyms

• gravity

Derived terms

• levitous

Translations

References

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English lightnes, lightnesse, from Old English l?htnes; equivalent to light (“bright, luminous”, adjective) +? -ness (suffix forming nouns).

Noun

lightness (countable and uncountable, plural lightnesses)

1. (uncountable) the condition of being illuminated
2. (uncountable) the relative whiteness or transparency of a colour
3. (countable) The product of being illuminated.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English lightnes, lightnesse,; equivalent to light (“not heavy”, adjective) +? -ness (suffix forming nouns).

Noun

lightness (uncountable)

1. The state of having little weight, or little force.
2. Agility of movement.
3. Freedom from worry.
4. Levity, frivolity; inconsistency.
   • , New York 2001, p.75:

     Seneca […] accounts it a filthy lightness in men, every day to lay new foundations of their life, but who doth otherwise?

Translations

References

Anagrams

• nightless, slightens