- relativity (n.)
- 1834, "fact or condition of being relative," from relative (adj.) (see relative (n.)); first attested in Coleridge. In scientific use, connected to the theory of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), published 1905 (special theory of relativity) and 1915 (general theory of relativity), but the word was used in roughly this sense by J.C. Maxwell in 1876.