Dictionary

precocity en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /pɹəˈkɒsɪti/
• (US) audio

Etymology

From French précocité.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The state of being precocious.
   • 1817 William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, New York: M'elrath, Bangs & Co., 1834, Section I, pp. 23-4, https://books.google.ca/books?id=5vE5AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false I cannot learn that he gave in his youth, any evidence of that precocity which sometimes distinguishes uncommon genius.
   • It was as if his precocity of crookedness (and every vulgar villain is precocious) had for once deceived him, and the man he had sought to entrap as a simpleton had, through his very simplicity, ignominiously baffled him. 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 15, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.:
   • How can we explain the relative precocity in political studies that the Greeks demonstrated in contrast to the backwardness of other early peoples? 1964, William Anderson, Man's Quest for Knowledge: The Study and Teaching of Politics in Ancient Times, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Epilogue, p. 329:
   • 2024 (October 20th) The Simpsons season 36 episode 3 "Desperately Seeking Lisa" Yes, she's truly a special young person, just brimming with precocity. In fact, I was thinking she might be a good fit for the Horace Frick Academy.
   • 1946, Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, Abridgement of Volumes I-VI by D.C. Somervell, Oxford University Press, Chapter XII, p. 242, https://books.google.ca/books?id=IbJ-31LPvyoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Anna Comnena, the Byzantine princess turned historian, sees our eleventh-century forebears in just this light, as appears in the mixture of horror with contempt which is her reaction to the mechanical ingenuity of the Crusaders' cross-bow, a Western novelty of her day which—with the characteristic precocity of lethal inventions—preceded by several centuries the invention of clockwork […]
   • Short stature persists into adult life but puberty is usually normal, although sexual precocity has been seen […] 1999, Leonard Pinsky, Robert P. Erickson, R. Neil Schimke, chapter 15, in Genetic Disorders of Human Sexual Development, Oxford University Press, page 314:
   • By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

Forms

Synonyms

precociousness

Translations (14)

ga seanchríonnacht (state of being precocious) · ga seanaimsearthacht (state of being precocious) · it precocia (state of being precocious) · ko 조숙 (state of being precocious) · es precocidad (state of being precocious) · cmn 早慧 (state of being precocious) · ja 早熟 (state of being precocious) · bg преждевременно развитие (state of being precocious) · cmn 早熟 (state of being precocious) · ga seanórthacht (state of being precocious) · sv brådmogenhet (state of being precocious) · it precocità (state of being precocious) · de Frühreife (state of being precocious) · ca precocitat (state of being precocious)