Quiddity

I've always liked this word, ever since coming across it as a word/place of power/mystery in the magical struggles of Clive Barker's characters in the novels Imagica(oh how I wish Pie o' Pah would dispatch the unholy being who decided to split the novel into two paperbacks in order to maximize profit at the expense of art--do yourself a favor and find the original single novel in hardback) and The Great and Secret Show ... the word is sensual and powerful, use it with care and respect!

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Merriam Webster's Word of the Day

quiddity \KWID-uh-tee\ noun

*1 : whatever makes something the type that it is : essence
2 a : a trifling point : quibble b : crotchet, eccentricity


Example sentence:
"We wanted to enhance [the house] without 'countrifying' it — for it to retain its quiddity, its 'whatness.'" (April Gornik in Architectural Digest, April 1989)

Did you know?
When it comes to synonyms of "quiddity," the Q's have it. Consider "quintessence," a synonym of the "essence of a thing "sense of "quiddity" (this oldest sense of "quiddity" dates from the 14th century). "Quibble" is a synonym of the "trifling point" sense; that meaning of "quiddity" arose from the subtler points of 16th-century academic arguments. And "quirk," like "quiddity," can refer to a person's eccentricities. Of course, "quiddity" also derives from a "Q" word, the Latin pronoun "quis," which is one of two Latin words for "who" (the other is "qui"). "Quid," the neuter form of "quis," gave rise to the Medieval Latin "quidditas," which means "essence," a term that was essential to the development of the English "quiddity."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.