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Added 9 October 2026

relativity

/ɹɛl.əˈtɪv.ɪ.ti/ noun

In Latin: relātīvitās Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about relativity at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

(physics) the theory that space and time are relative concepts rather than absolute concepts.
The quality of being relative and having significance only in relation to something else.

Origin

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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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