quinity

English

Etymology

From Latin quīnitās, from quīnī (“five each”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈkwɪnɪti/

Noun

quinity (countable and uncountable, plural quinities)

  1. Synonym of quintet: A group of five.
    • 1997, Ernst Kantorowicz: Erträge Der Doppeltagung Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt‎, page 100:
      His subject is a "strange image" among the llth century drawings of the Winchester school, which he calls a quinity. But what is a quinity? Let me explain it in his own words: "It is a Quaternity of God the Father, the Son, St. Mary, and the Holy Ghost; or, if we add the Infant on the lap of the Virgin, we face the seemingly unique representation of what logically must be called a Quinity".
    • 2001, Kantorowicz: Stories of a Historian‎:
      In 1947, for example, in a wonderful study of the "quinity" of Winchester, Kantorowicz interprets an astonishing sketch in a book of offices (officia) copied in Winchester at the beginning of the eleventh century. He invents the term quinity to describe a curious composition showing the Holy Family, in which there appear two identical representations of the divinity side by side.
    • 2004, Scriptoria in Medieval Saxony: St. Pancras in Hamersleben‎, page 142:
      It is thus of particular interest to find the Trinity and the Incarnation combined in one medallion in the so- called Quinity of Winchester, of 1023-1035 (fol.75v- fig. 119)195. The Virgin and Child, who holds a book, is next to the two similar figures of God the Father and God the Son, who are sitting on a bow and also holding books. The Holy Ghost alights on Mary's crowned head, and all but she have crossed haloes.
    • 2008, Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at King's College London, April 1995‎, page 13:
      Plate 3 shows Mary as part of what has been called a heavenly Quinity; not the traditional trinity of father, son and holy spirit, but a fivesome where the usual three are joined by Mary and her infant
  2. Synonym of fiveness: The state of being five or having 5 parts.

Coordinate terms
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