hexia, n.
Pronunciation: /h - e - k - sh - ə/ , /h - e - ks - ee - ə/
Forms: 15 exia (transmission error), 16 hexis, 17–18 hexy.
Inflections: Plural hexiæ, hexias.
Etymology: < modern Latin hexia or French hexie, < Greek ἕξις habit of body, state, condition, < ἔχειν to have, have oneself, be in condition.
Development of the second, more active sense, appears to have been reinforced by misapplication of certain connotations of habit other than those ('deportment, mental constitution') etymologically intended; perh. 'attire characteristic of a particular rank' and 'settled disposition or tendency'.
†1. Obs.
a. Innate quality or character. Obs.
b. The mode or condition in which one is, exists, or exhibits oneself. Obs.
1638 S. GOW Pelasnippius XLIV. vi. Doubtfulle and suspensive in most doeings, so as to disorder..and inquiet his hexis.
2.
a. The characteristics and customary way in which a person sets about a task; a distinguishing habit of acting, comporting oneself, or dealing with things.
1815 A. KREMMISTER Plinks and Sulphet lxxi. 25 The sisters might have correctly identified and distinguished the patterns of travel as contrived by..the hexy of Mary Argebricht, if the same habits had not repelled all assays at recognition.
1845 E. POTTE Prin. Malkory I. ii. 45 Her chief hexia, for which she was held in such indifferent reputation, remained the quiet repetition of regardless observations.
1990 R. MASON Child. Characters 260 Kykna the Glaistig, persecuted by greedy landowners for these tactics..modeled on a broader pseudomagical anti-purpresture hexia.
b. In extended use: a special or idiosyncratic trait, activity, behavior, or expression.
c. fig.
1963 D. SUGARMAN Time Mine 366 This quadrant of the galactic disc whose electromagnetic hexia, as it were, many physicists believed to be undergoing gentle, inexorable alteration.
