DOCILITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does docility mean? 

• DOCILITY (noun)
  The noun DOCILITY has 1 sense:

1. the trait of being agreeably submissive and manageable

  Familiarity information: DOCILITY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DOCILITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The trait of being agreeably submissive and manageable

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("docility" is a kind of...):

flexibility; tractability; tractableness (the trait of being easily persuaded)

Derivation:

docile (willing to be taught or led or supervised or directed)

docile (easily handled or managed)

 Context examples 

When John spoke in that masterful tone, Meg always obeyed, and never regretted her docility.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Having thus pointed the moral and reduced his flock to a fitting state of docility, he dismissed them once more to their labors and withdrew himself to his own private chamber, there to seek spiritual aid in the discharge of the duties of his high office.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Upon these, and the like reasonings, their opinion is, that parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the education of their own children; and therefore they have in every town public nurseries, where all parents, except cottagers and labourers, are obliged to send their infants of both sexes to be reared and educated, when they come to the age of twenty moons, at which time they are supposed to have some rudiments of docility.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Amy was a model of docility, and as her aunt was a good deal occupied with Flo, she was left to entertain her friend, and did it with more than her usual success.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)