Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TE-NU'I-TY, n. [Fr. tenuité; L. tenuitas, from tenuis, thin. See Thin.]

1. Thinness; smallness in diameter; exility; thinness, applied to a broad substance, and slenderness, applied to one that is long; as, the tenuity of paper or of a leaf; the tenuity of a hair or filament.
2. Rarity; rareness; thinness; as of a fluid; as, the tensity of the air in the higher regions of the atmosphere; the tenuity of the blood. Bacon.
3. Poverty. [Not in use.] K. Charles.