quiddity

In scholastic philosophy, "quiddity" (; Latin: quidditas) was another term for the essence of an object, literally its "whatness" or "what it is".

==Etymology== The term "quiddity" derives from the Latin word quidditas, which was used by the medieval scholastics as a literal translation of the equivalent term in Aristotle's Greek to ti ên einai (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) or "the what it was to be (a given thing)".