Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Nativity
1.
The coming into life or into the world; birth; also, the circumstances attending birth, as time, place, manner, etc.
Chaucer.
I have served him from the hour of my
nativity
. Shakespeare
Thou hast left . . . the land of thy
nativity
. Ruth ii. 11.
These in their dark
Shall yield us, pregnant with infernal flame.
nativity
the deepShall yield us, pregnant with infernal flame.
Milton.
2.
(Fine Arts)
(capitalized)
A picture representing or symbolizing the early infancy of Christ. The simplest form is the babe in a rude cradle, and the heads of an ox and an ass to express the stable in which he was born.
3.
(Astrol.)
A representation of the positions of the heavenly bodies as the moment of one’s birth, supposed to indicate one's future destinies; a horoscope.
The Nativity
, the birth or birthday of Christ; Christmas day.
– To cast one's nativity
or
To calculate one's nativity
(Astrol.)
, to find out and represent the position of the heavenly bodies at the time of one's birth.
Webster 1828 Edition
Nativity
NATIVITY
,Noun.
1.
Birth; the coming into life or the world. The feast of Christmas is observed in memory of Christs nativity.2.
Time, place and manner of birth; as, to calculate ones nativity. 3.
State or place of being produced.These, in their dark nativity, the deep Shall yield us pregnant with infernal flame.
Definition 2024
Nativity
Nativity
nativity
nativity
See also: Nativity
English
Noun
nativity (plural nativities)
- (now dated) Someone's birth; the place, time and circumstances of a birth. [from 14th c.]
- (also with capital initial) The birth of Jesus. [from 14th c.]
- (Christianity) The festival celebrating the birth of Jesus; Christmas Day. [from 12th c.]
- (astrology) Someone's birth considered as a means of astrology; a horoscope associated with a person's birth. [from 14th c.]
- 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 313:
- Accordingly […] he was careful, as befitted a Fellow of the Royal Society, to note the exact nativity of his subjects whenever it could be discovered; in this way he hoped to make possible a scientific comparison of the course of human life with the astrological circumstances of its inception, and ths to arrive at a more exact astrology.
- 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 313:
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
birth
Nativity — see Nativity