modality

American  

[moh-dal-i-tee] / moʊˈdæl ɪ ti /

noun

plural

modalities

1. the quality or state of being modal.

2. an attribute or circumstance that denotes mode or manner.

3. Also called mode.  Logic. the classification of propositions according to whether they are contingently true or false, possible, impossible, or necessary.

4. Medicine/Medical. the application of a therapeutic agent, usually a physical therapeutic agent.

5. one of the primary forms of sensation, as vision or touch.

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Other Word Forms

• multimodality noun

Etymology

Origin of modality

From the Medieval Latin word modālitās, dating back to 1610–20. See modal, -ity

Example Sentences

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenter, frames Colorado’s law as prohibiting merely “a dangerous therapy modality that, incidentally, involves provider speech.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026

On Friday, he told journalists: "The Donbas issue is key. It will be discussed as will be the modality of how the three sides see it."

From BBC • Jan. 23, 2026

However, D-Wave has long concentrated on a specific modality called annealing quantum computing, and only recently announced its return to gate-based quantum, the approach favored by peers like IonQ and International Business Machines.

From Barron's • Jan. 7, 2026

Reiki for humans is a Japanese energy-healing modality that, practitioners say, aids relaxation, pain relief and overall health by realigning the body’s energy centers, or “chakras.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 21, 2025

He illustrates it by instancing the absence of a developed mode in Sanscrit, and maintains that in the creators of that tongue the conception of modality was never truly felt and distinguished from tense.

From The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb by Brinton, Daniel Garrison