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secondary quality
noun
- one of the qualities attributed by the mind to an object perceived, such as color, temperature, or taste.
51³Ô¹Ï History and Origins
Origin of secondary quality1
Example Sentences
Throughout the scientific revolutions of the 17th Century, color was dismissed, along with other aesthetic properties like scent, as a secondary quality — that is, one lacking the explanatory role in the behavior of physical objects of so-called primary qualities, like motion or size or shape.
He seemed worlds different than the factory-produced bores of the PGA Tour, but his intelligence, far from being a secondary quality, was the practical kind he applied to the art of winning.
“About odor, which is what Locke would call a secondary quality of bodies. What is unexpected is that time has a smell, Octavian; how else might we explain that old men exude the scent of years?â€
My turnout is altogether elaborate, studiously particular—simply because I hold the people in too much esteem, to shab them off with anything of a secondary quality, while Providence has blessed me with the means of providing them the best.
The goods displayed in the windows are of a secondary quality, at best; and the people who throng the pavements are people who want second-rate articles.
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