Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Dampness, especially of the air.
  • noun Relative humidity.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being humid; moisture; dampness; especially, a moderate degree of wetness which is perceptible to the eye or touch.
  • noun In meteorology, the amount of aqueous vapor in the atmosphere compared with that which is required to saturate it under the given condition as to temperature: specifically called relative humidity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Moisture; dampness; a moderate degree of wetness, which is perceptible to the eye or touch; -- used especially of the atmosphere, or of anything which has absorbed moisture from the atmosphere, as clothing.
  • noun The content of water vapor in the air, expressed as a percent of the maximum amount of water vapor that the air can hold at the given temperature; also called relative humidity. The capacity of the air to hold moisture increases with temperature, so if the temperature changes without changing the absolute content of the atmospheric moisture, the relative humidity will also change.
  • noun Same as humidity{2}.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun dampness, especially that of the air.
  • noun the amount of water vapour in the air.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun wetness in the atmosphere

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English humidite, from Old French, from Medieval Latin hūmiditās, from Latin hūmidus, humid; see humid.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English humidite, from Old French, from Medieval Latin humiditas, from Latin umidus ("damp, moist, wet")

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Examples

  • The term humidity describes the fact that the atmosphere can contain water vapor.

    Atmospheric humidity 2006

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

  • I'm from Seattle where it rains all of the time and the humidity is always high during the rainy season.

    Dehumidifier 2008

Comments

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  • Thanks, freakish nighttime humidity! I had no idea I could come so close to fainting in a lukewarm shower, bathroom windows wide open. Boy golly!

    Our weathery sensormabob (one of those silly man-gadgets, in this case a clock) is reading 99% humidity; it's 70 degrees outside, and I'm blasting the air conditioning. PLEASE TO BE MAKE WITH THE RAINING SOON THIS IS RIDICULOUS THANK YOU.

    August 30, 2008

  • Hee hee!

    August 30, 2008

  • We'll see who's hee-heeing when you have weirdly strong soup cravings* and it's too humid for soup! Boy could I go for some soup. :(

    *I can't decide on the most appropriate phrase, but I know it has "somethin' fierce" somewhere in it

    August 30, 2008