CONSTANCY
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Dictionary entry overview: What does constancy mean?
• CONSTANCY (noun)
The noun CONSTANCY has 3 senses:
1. the quality of being enduring and free from change or variation
2. (psychology) the tendency for perceived objects to give rise to very similar perceptual experiences in spite of wide variations in the conditions of observation
3. faithfulness and dependability in personal attachments (especially sexual fidelity)
Familiarity information: CONSTANCY used as a noun is uncommon.
Dictionary entry details
• CONSTANCY (noun)
Meaning:
The quality of being enduring and free from change or variation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Synonyms:
constancy; stability
Context example:
early mariners relied on the constancy of the trade winds
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)
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
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Synonyms:
perceptual constancy; constancy
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))
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)
