quiddity

And one of the few hopeful things I observed, in an otherwise grim time, was that, despite the advancing creep of retail sameness that long predated a pandemic, plenty of quiddity remained.

From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2021

And that may have sounded like a compliment to a playful media class, but quiddity is identity.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 3, 2020

Sapped of quiddity, she has become “an all-American girl.”

From New York Times ● Jun. 23, 2016

Beautifying asphalt would seem to be no cinch, but the naked quiddity of the stuff, after a third or fourth look, turns cherishable.

From The New Yorker ● Mar. 21, 2016

But we are now speaking of nature as it signifies the essence, or the "what-it-is," or the quiddity of the species.

From Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Saint Thomas Aquinas

Managers, doormen and valets, with their quiddities and quirks, help set the tone for the singular ecosystem that is any given apartment building, as Mr. Soffer, the banker, explained.

From New York Times ● Mar. 23, 2020

“When you homogenize a city, you destroy its feeling of urbanity,” Ms. Schulman said, referring to the banks and drugstores and chains retailers steadily wallpapering over the city’s indispensable quiddities.

From New York Times ● Feb. 25, 2020

Whatever is going on, whatever misalliances and misdelving of quiddities we get into, the human heart is still beating in the same way in everybody’s chest.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 2, 2016

After Lord Desborough's introduction, embroidered with such quips and quiddities as all Yeomen of the guard insist on.

From Time Magazine Archive

Dan Merriment, Sir Gravity," answered Robin, "a Fool valiant and wise, a maker of songs, of quips and quiddities many and jocund, Joconde hight.

From The Geste of Duke Jocelyn by Jeffery Farnol