Definition of "extroversion"

extroversion

noun
usually uncountable, plural extroversions
1. The state or quality of being extroverted or an extrovert, particularly:
  1. (religion, obsolete) Consideration of the material world as an aid to spiritual insight.
    Quotations
    in mystical Divinity... a scattering or distracting ones thoughts upon exterior objects.
    1656, Thomas Blount, Glossographia, s.v. "Extroversion"
    The turning of the eye of the mind from [Christ] to outward things [mystics] call Extroversion.
    1788, John Wesley, Works, volume VI, page 451
  2. (medicine) The condition of being inside out, especially in relation to the bladder.
    Quotations
    In extroversion of the bladder the anterior part of this organ is more or less completely wanting.
    1835, Robert Bentley Todd, editor, The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, volume I, page 391
  3. (informal psychology) A personality orientation towards others and things outside oneself; behavior expressing such orientation.
    Quotations
    Extroversion is the thrusting out of the mind on to life, the use of the mind in practical affairs, the pouring out of the libido on external objects.
    1920, Arthur George Tansley, The New Psychology and Its Relation to Life, page 88
    In a genre characterized by brassy extroversion, The Dead is a quiet revolutionary: a musical that dares to be diffident.
    1999 October 29, Ben Brantley, “‘The Dead’: a Musical That Dares to be Quiet”, in New York Times