felicity

fe·lic·i·ty

noun \fi-ˈli-sə-tē\

plural fe·lic·i·ties

Definition of FELICITY

1

a : the quality or state of being happy; especially : great happiness <marital felicity>

b : an instance of happiness

2

: something that causes happiness

3

: a pleasing manner or quality especially in art or language <a felicity with words>

4

: an apt expression

Examples of FELICITY

1. I've always admired his felicity with words.
2. <told his friends that marriage had brought him a felicity that he had never known before>

Origin of FELICITY

Middle English felicite, from Anglo-French felicité, from Latin felicitat-, felicitas, from felic-, felix fruitful, happy — more at feminine

First Known Use: 14th century

Related to FELICITY

Synonyms

beatitude, blessedness, bliss, blissfulness, happiness, gladness, joy, warm fuzzies

Antonyms

calamity, ill-being, misery, sadness, unhappiness, wretchedness

Related Words

elatedness, elation, exhilaration, exultation, high, intoxication; ecstasy, euphoria, glory, heaven, nirvana, paradise, rapture, rapturousness, ravishment, seventh heaven, transport; delectation, delight, enjoyment, pleasure; cheer, cheerfulness, comfort, exuberance, gaiety (also gayety), gladsomeness, glee, gleefulness, jocundity, jollity, joyfulness, joyousness, jubilance, jubilation, lightheartedness, merriness, mirth; content, contentedness, gratification, satisfaction, triumph

Near Antonyms

agony, anguish, desolation, joylessness, sorrow, sufferance, woe, woefulness; blues, cheerlessness, dejection, depression, desolateness, despondency, disheartenment, dispiritedness, doldrums, downheartedness, gloom, gloominess, melancholy, mournfulness, plaintiveness; Gehenna, hell, purgatory

Rhymes with FELICITY

basicity, causticity, centricity, chronicity, clonicity, conicity, cyclicity, ethnicity, facticity, lubricity, mendicity, plasticity, publicity, rhythmicity, seismicity, simplicity, spasticity, sphericity, tonicity, toxicity, triplicity