"character or faculty of being creative," 1859, from creative + -ity. An earlier word was creativeness (1800).
Entries linking to creativity
creative adj.
1670s, "having the quality or function of creating," from create + -ive. Of literature and art, "imaginative," from 1816, in Wordsworth. Creative writing is attested by 1848. Related: Creatively.
-ity
word-forming element making abstract nouns from adjectives and meaning "condition or quality of being ______," from Middle English -ite, from Old French -ete (Modern French -ité) and directly from Latin -itatem (nominative -itas), suffix denoting state or condition, composed of -i- (from the stem or else a connective) + the common abstract suffix -tas (see -ty (2)).
Roughly, the word in -ity usually means the quality of being what the adjective describes, or concretely an instance of the quality, or collectively all the instances; & the word in -ism means the disposition, or collectively all those who feel it. [Fowler]