Nationality

1. a. National quality or character. 1691 T. H[ALE] Acc. New Invent. 37 The Ingredients employed..are of Forreign growth; which we make use of not so much for the sake of the Nationality of its Argument [etc.]. 1830 J. WILSON in Blackw. Mag. XXVIII. 847 We must again enter our protest against the Nationality of a library conducted on such principles. 1845 GRAVES Rom. Law in Encycl. Metrop. II. 741/1 Those peculiar institutions which coloured all their nationality. a1854 H. REED Lect. Eng. Hist. iv. 121 Ancient British nationality received into itself a Roman nationality.

b. In literature, art, etc., the quality of being distinctively national. 1827 CARLYLE Misc. (1857) I. 24 All true nationality vanished from its literature. 1840 New Monthly Mag. LIX. 369 That peculiar wildness and eccentricity, or, if we may so term it, nationality, by which the primitive melodies of the Scotch, Welsh, and Irish, are..distinguished. 1876 LOWELL Among my Bks. Ser. II. 129, I have little faith in that quality in literature which is commonly called nationality.

c. With pl. A national trait, characteristic, or peculiarity. rare. 1797 W. TAYLOR in Monthly Rev. XXII. 248 They remember with pleasure those nationalities which civilization is effacing. 1823 Ibid. CII. 420 He described our everyday nationalities.

2. Nationalism; attachment to one's country or nation; national feeling. 1772 Junius Lett. Pref. (1788) 23 The characteristic prudence, the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile. 1785 BOSWELL Tour Hebrides 11 He could not but see in them that nationality which I should think no liberal minded Scotsman will deny. 1831 Blackw. Mag. XXX. 665 Nationality is not patriotism, or it would admire the nationality of other nations. 1858 GLADSTONE Homer II. iii. 192 Her strong and profound Greek nationality. 1878 LECKY Eng. 18th C. II. vii. 436 A spirit of nationality had arisen.

3. a. The fact of belonging to a particular nation; spec. a legal relationship between a state and an individual involving reciprocal rights and duties. Also with reference to the legal device by which ships, aircraft, and companies acquire the protection of the state in which they are registered. 1828 D'ISRAELI Chas. I, I. v. 95 [He] had wisely cast off his nationality when it could only occasion pain. 1865 MAFFEI Brigand Life II. 139 The safety which his nationality was likely to afford. 1878 M. E. BRADDON Eleanor's Vict. ii. 13 Every article of furniture..bore the impress of its nationality. 1880 W. E. HALL Internat. Law II. v. 188 The more important states recognise..that the child of a foreigner ought to be allowed to be himself a foreigner, unless he manifests a wish to assume or retain the nationality of the state in which he has been born. 1893 Law Rep. Prob. Div. 209 The ship..was of French nationality. 1907 L. A. ATHERLEY-JONES Commerce in War vi. 345 Every merchant vessel is expected to carry on board some official documents vouching for her nationality. 1928 E. M. BORCHARD Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad iii. 555 With the rise of the modern state in Europe..nationality became the test of civil and political status. 1961 N. BAR-YAACOV Dual Nationality 3 Having wide discretion to formulate their nationality laws according to their own interests, States adopt different methods for acquisition of nationality, the result being that two States may simultaneously confer their nationality on the same individual. 1964 GOULD & KOLB Dict. Social Sci. 456/2 The normal way in which nationality is acquired is through birth... Nationality may also be granted to a person who is originally foreign or stateless. This process is known as naturalization.

b. With pl. denoting identity or difference of nation among individuals. 1846 H. W. TORRENS Rem. Milit. Hist. 50 The confused usage of military terms among the Greeks arising from their differences of dialect and separate nationalities. 1864 G. W. DASENT Jest & Earnest (1873) I. 140 Curious it was to see how nationalities herded together over their food. 1880 ‘VERNON LEE’ Italy III. iii. 122 The town of Italy where men of all nationalities had most met.

4. Separate or complete existence as a nation; national independence or consolidation. 1832 Examiner 488/1 If the nationality of any of the smaller German states were extinguished. 1850 H. MARTINEAU Hist. Peace IV. xiii. (1877) III. 128 The Poles had been fightingfor nationality it is truebut not for national freedom. 1883 FROUDE Short Stud. IV. III. 269 So far as force could do it, they annihilated the Jewish nationality.

attrib. 1878 SEELEY Stein II. 26 Now he ripens at once into a great nationality statesman.

5. A nation; freq., a people potentially but not actually a nation. Also occas., a racial or ethnic group. 1832 Examiner 488/1 It leaves the various existing nationalities of Germany unimpaired. 1856 G. W. DASENT Jest & Earnest (1873) I. 311 Welded by time and trouble into a distinct nationality. 1874 STUBBS Const. Hist. I. iv. 59 The Saxons in Germany were still a pure nationality. 1952 S. SELVON Brighter Sun v. 88 Whenever he saw a couple of different nationalities he used to hail out to them, and tell Stella that that was the way to live, especially in Trinidad. Ibid., He used to say that all this business about colour and nationality was balls. 1964 GOULD & KOLB Dict. Social Sci. 244/1 In the Soviet Union, nationalities is more frequently applied to the diverse national-ethnic units who make up the membership of the Union. 1971 Times 17 Dec., ‘Nationality’, in the sense of citizenship of a certain state, must not be confused with ‘nationality’ as meaning membership of a certain nation in the sense of race.

6. = NATIONALTY. rare. 1830 COLERIDGE Church & State 37 The sum total of these heritable portions..I beg leave to name the Propriety; and to call the reserve above mentioned the Nationality.