All 4 Uses of
felicity
in
Middlemarch
- Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed to leave unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity?†
Chpt 1 *infelicity = awkwardness or inappropriateness; or an instance of suchstandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in infelicity means not and reverses the meaning of felicity. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- It expressed regrets and proposed remedies, which, when Mr. Brooke read them, seemed felicitously worded—surprisingly the right thing, and determined a sequel which he had never before thought of.†
Chpt 3
- The felicitous word "demise," which had seasonably occurred to him, had raised his spirits even above their usual evening pitch.†
Chpt 3
Uses with a meaning too rare to warrant foucs:
- By-and-by Celia would come in her quality of bridesmaid as well as sister, and through the next weeks there would be wedding visits received and given; all in continuance of that transitional life understood to correspond with the excitement of bridal felicity, and keeping up the sense of busy ineffectiveness, as of a dream which the dreamer begins to suspect.†
Chpt 3 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(felicity as in: domestic felicity) happiness or luck; or an instance or source of such
-
(2)
(felicity as in: felicity of expression) pleasing and appropriate manner or style; or an instance of such
-
(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Less commonly, Felicity is the first name of a female.