#27 - Velleity (revisited)
An observant subscriber alerted me to the fact that I had already used the previously posted image for another word. I've now updated the below post with an image of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who is said to have mistaken velleity for resolve. Thank you, subscriber!
velleity /vɛˈliː.ɪ.ti/, noun (countable and uncountable, plural velleities). 1. The lowest degree of desire or volition; a total lack of effort to act. 2. A slight wish not followed by any effort to obtain.
1870, James Russell Lowell, Rousseau and the Sentimentalists:
Rousseau showed through life a singular proneness for being convinced by his own eloquence; he was always his own first convert; and this reconciles his power as a writer with his weakness as a man. He and all like him mistake emotion for conviction, velleity for resolve, the brief eddy of sentiment for the midcurrent of ever-gathering faith in duty that draws to itself all the affluents of conscience and will, and gives continuity and purpose to life.
1917, T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot, “[Prufrock and Other Observations.] Portrait of a Lady.”, in Collected Poems 1909–1935, London: Faber & Faber […], published September 1954, page 16:
—And so the conversation slips / Among velleities and carefully caught regrets / Through attenuated tones of violins / Mingled with remote cornets / And begins.
ORIGIN: Medieval Latin velleitās, from Latin velle (“wish, will”).
Today’s definition is from Wiktionary, the free online collaborative dictionary.