Quality, n.; pl. Qualities.
Etymology: [F. qualité, L. qualitas, fr. qualis how constituted, as; akin to E. which. See Which.]
1. The condition of being of such and such a sort as distinguished from others; nature or character relatively considered, as of goods; character; sort; rank. We lived most joyful, obtaining acquaintance with many of the city not of the meanest quality. Bacon
2. Special or temporary character; profession; occupation; assumed or asserted rank, part, or position. I made that inquiry in quality of an antiquary. Gray.
3. That which makes, or helps to make, anything such as it is; anything belonging to a subject, or predicable of it; distinguishing property, characteristic, or attribute; peculiar power, capacity, or virtue; distinctive trait; as, the tones of a flute differ from those of a violin in quality; the great quality of a statesman.
Note: Qualities, in metaphysics, are primary or secondary. Primary are those essential to the existence, and even the conception, of the thing, as of matter or spirit Secondary are those not essential to such a conception.
3 more senses
4. An acquired trait; accomplishment; acquisition. He had those qualities of horsemanship, dancing, and fencing which accompany a good breeding. Clarendon.
5. Superior birth or station; high rank; elevated character. "Persons of quality." Bacon. Quality binding, a kind of worsted tape used in Scotland for binding carpets, and the like. The quality, those of high rank or station, as distinguished from the masses, or common people; the nobility; the gentry. I shall appear at the masquerade dressed up in my feathers, that the quality may see how pretty they will look in their traveling habits. Addison.
Syn. -- Property; attribute; nature; peculiarity; character; sort; rank; disposition; temper.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for quality; he lists it under attribute, characteristic.
Where he writes about it:
A quality (L. qualis, such)--the "suchness" of anything, according to the German idiom--denotes what a thing really is in some one respect; an attribute is what we conceive a thing to be in some one respect; thus, while attribute may, quality must, express something of the real nature of that to which it is ascribed; we speak of the attributes of God, the qualities of matter. — from attribute
A property (L. proprius, one's own) is what belongs especially to one thing as its own peculiar possession, in distinction from all other things; when we speak of the qualities or the properties of matter, quality is the more general, property the more limited term. — from attribute
A quality is inherent; a property may be transient; physicists now, however, prefer to term those qualities manifested by all bodies (such as impenetrability, extension, etc.), general properties of matter, while those peculiar to certain substances or to certain states of those substances (as fluidity, malleability, etc.) are termed specific properties; in this wider use of the word property, it becomes strictly synonymous with quality. — from attribute