relativity

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   (physics) The scientific theory that space and time are not fixed but depend on the observer's motion.

   Einstein's theory of relativity changed the way we understand the universe.

2. 2
   noun

   The quality of having meaning or value only in comparison with something else.

   The relativity of beauty means each culture admires different things.

From relative (“connected to or depending on something else”) + -ity (suffix forming nouns from adjectives where the nouns refer to the properties, qualities, or states described by the adjectives). Sense 2.1 (“reliance of the nature of physical phenomena on the relative motion between an observer and the thing observed”) is a translation of German Relativität (“relativity”) used in the works of the German-American theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955). Morphologically relative + -ity.

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