levity

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin levitās (“lightness, frivolity”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from levis (“light in weight”) and the suffix that gives English -ity.^[4][5][2] The OED, Klein and Etymonline instead take it through French, from Old French levité.^[7][8][9] The Latin adjective is traced to Proto-Indo-European *legwh- (“not heavy, having little weight”),^[9][3] which is also the source of the English adjective light,^[9] and Hoad compares Ancient Greek ἐλαχύς (elakhús, “short”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lack of serious thought, frivolity: 1564, in a work the OED cites as Briefe Exam.,^[7][2][4] and the 1560s in Etymonline.^[9] Dictionary.com dates the word more broadly to 1555–65.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The Latin noun already covered both physical lightness and light-mindedness,^[9] but in English the moral sense came first, and the physical one is recorded only from 1598.^[7] In the science of the 16th and 17th centuries, levity was a force or property of bodies, the opposite of gravity, that made them tend to rise;^[9][7][5] Johnson's first sense in 1755 is still the lightness of a body, and he quotes Bentley on a bubble that rises because of its comparative levity.^[12] From the early 17th century the moral sense also spread to fickleness and inconstancy (1604) and to undignified conduct, said especially of women (1601).^[7][5] The sense that now prevails is an unseemly jocularity, for which the OED quotes Johnson's phrase "trifling gaiety",^[7][12] and a single joking remark has been called a levity since 1930.^[7]

Timeline

• 1564 – want of serious thought, frivolity.^[7][2][4]
• 1598 – physical lightness, little weight.^[7]
• 1601 – in old physics, a property that makes bodies tend to rise; also undignified behaviour.^[7]
• 1604 – fickleness, inconstancy.^[7]
• 1607 – lightness in movement, agility (obsolete by 1610).^[7]
• before 1631 – lightness of spirit, freedom from care (obsolete).^[7]
• 1704 – figuratively, lightness of immaterial things.^[7]
• 1930 – a remark marked by levity.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lack of proper seriousness; frivolity or jocularity at the wrong moment: Her joke brought a moment of levity to the long meeting.^[13][4][7]
2. A remark or act marked by such frivolity.^[7][5]
3. Fickleness; lack of steadiness or constancy.^[13][4][7]
4. (archaic) Lightness in weight.^[13][5]
5. (obsolete) In old physics, a property thought to make bodies tend to rise, the opposite of gravity.^[7][5][9]

Related words

• light
• lever
• levy
• levee
• levitate
• elevate
• alleviate
• relieve
• leaven

Usage notes

The OED has a separate, obsolete noun levity, smoothness or a smooth surface, recorded in 1613, which comes from Latin lēvitās, from lēvis (“smooth”).^[7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins