Definitions

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

  • noun The state or quality of being mature.
  • noun The time at which a note or bond is due.
  • noun The state of a note or bond being due.
  • noun Geology A stage in the development of streams or landscapes at which maximum development has been reached or at which the process of erosion is going on with maximum vigor. Maturity of a landscape continues throughout the period of maximum topographic differentiation or until about three fourths of the original mass is carried away by erosion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In physical geography, that stage in the geographical cycle or cycle of erosion when the fullest development of variety in forms and of activity in processes is attained. It lies between the uncarved forms of youth and the worn-down forms of old age.
  • noun The state of being mature; ripeness; completeness; full development or elaboration: as, maturity of age; the maturity of corn; the maturity of a scheme.
  • noun In com., the time fixed for payment of an obligation; the time when a note or bill of exchange becomes due.
  • noun In medicine, a state of perfect suppuration.

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

  • noun The state or quality of being mature; ripeness; full development
  • noun Arrival of the time fixed for payment; a becoming due; termination of the period a note, etc., has to run.

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

  • noun The state of being mature, ready or ripe
  • noun When bodily growth has completed and/or reproduction can begin
  • noun countable, finance Date when payment is due

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

  • noun state of being mature; full development
  • noun the date on which an obligation must be repaid
  • noun the period of time in your life after your physical growth has stopped and you are fully developed

Etymologies

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

[Middle English maturite, from Old French, from Latin mātūritās, from mātūrus, mature; see mature.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mature + -ity

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Examples

  • The filling of the juvenile mind, long before nature brings the body to maturity, with impure imaginations, not only preoccupies the ground which is greatly needed for something else, and fills it with shoots of a noxious growth, but actually induces, if I may so say, a _precocious maturity_.

    The Young Man's Guide William A. Alcott 1824

  • The word freedom had dropped from her vocabulary; the word maturity replaced it.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • The word freedom had dropped from her vocabulary; the word maturity replaced it.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • The word freedom had dropped from her vocabulary; the word maturity replaced it.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • I'd even call it "maturity" -- or I would, if I hadn't gotten a kick out of ForumWarz.

    Archive 2008-02-01 SVGL 2008

  • Both novels, for example, reflect an initial isolation of the hero, a sense of expectancy with which his maturity is anticipated, and a sense of guilt which his actions create.

    O'Kell - Criticism - Critical Contexts 1976

  • Perhaps, in some dark hidden place in her mind, she had wanted a child: perhaps what she was waiting for, what she called maturity, involved having one and getting it over with.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • Perhaps, in some dark hidden place in her mind, she had wanted a child: perhaps what she was waiting for, what she called maturity, involved having one and getting it over with.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • Perhaps, in some dark hidden place in her mind, she had wanted a child: perhaps what she was waiting for, what she called maturity, involved having one and getting it over with.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • But when the evolving form has reached a certain degree of comparative perfection which we call maturity, it

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas KURT VON FRITZ 1968

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