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CONSTANCY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The quality of being enduring and free from change or variation
Example:
early mariners relied on the constancy of the trade winds
Synonyms:
constancy; stability
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("constancy" is a kind of...):
changelessness; unchangeability; unchangeableness; unchangingness (the quality of being unchangeable; having a marked tendency to remain unchanged)
Attribute:
constant (steadfast in purpose or devotion or affection)
inconstant (likely to change frequently often without apparent or cogent reason; variable)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "constancy"):
invariance (the nature of a quantity or property or function that remains unchanged when a given transformation is applied to it)
metastability (the quality of a physical system that persists in its existing equilibrium when undisturbed (or only slightly disturbed) but able to pass to a more stable equilibrium when sufficiently disturbed)
monotony (constancy of tone or pitch or inflection)
Antonym:
inconstancy (the quality of being changeable and variable)
Derivation:
constant (unvarying in nature)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Faithfulness and dependability in personal attachments (especially sexual fidelity)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("constancy" is a kind of...):
faithfulness; fidelity (the quality of being faithful)
Derivation:
constant (steadfast in purpose or devotion or affection)
Sense 3
Meaning:
(psychology) the tendency for perceived objects to give rise to very similar perceptual experiences in spite of wide variations in the conditions of observation
Synonyms:
constancy; perceptual constancy
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("constancy" is a kind of...):
perception (the process of perceiving)
Domain category:
psychological science; psychology (the science of mental life)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "constancy"):
brightness constancy (the tendency for a visual object to be perceived as having the same brightness under widely different conditions of illumination)
color constancy; colour constancy (the tendency for a color to look the same under widely different viewing conditions)
shape constancy (the tendency to perceive the shape of a rigid object as constant despite differences in the viewing angle (and consequent differences in the shape of the pattern projected on the retina of the eye))
size constancy (the tendency to perceive the veridical size of a familiar object despite differences in their distance (and consequent differences in the size of the pattern projected on the retina of the eye))
Context examples:
Constancy: I am not afraid of the word.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
I think I shall like you again, and yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only like, but love you—with truth, fervour, constancy.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Beyond a line or two, to say that I was well, and had arrived at such a place, I had not had fortitude or constancy to write a letter since I left home.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But have sworn no vow of constancy or chastity?
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Marianne's note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in former days, that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of faith in the constancy of mine as ever, awakened all my remorse.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
He saw the advantages of the match, and rejoiced in them with all the constancy of his wife; but the wonder of it was very soon nothing; and by the end of an hour he was not far from believing that he had always foreseen it.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
You shook your head at my acknowledging that I should not like to engage in the duties of a clergyman always for a constancy.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
