Affinity means proximity, analogy, similarity, resemblance or kinship of one thing with another. For example, the affinity between two languages such as Portuguese and Spanish. The word comes from the Latin affinĭtas, affinitātis, which refers to ‘what is next’, ‘neighbor’.
The affinity is also a sense of attraction, sympathy or support character, opinions, tastes between two or more people. On a personal level, people seek to connect with those who have feelings of affinity, this is how love or friendship arise . On a social level , people tend to be grouped according to affinities: political, sports, religious, philosophical, professional.
Affinity in Law
In Law , affinity refers to the relationship that a spouse contracts by marriage to relatives by consanguinity of the other. Affinity links exist between a son-in-law or daughter-in-law and their respective in-laws, as well as between brothers-in-law. This type of bond is known as “political kinship.” Thus, an aunt’s husband would become a political uncle of the aunt’s consanguineal nephew. The kinship affinity does not imply, meanwhile, affinity between blood relatives of either spouse, so that “says affinitas non parit affinitatem ” (does not create affinity affinity).
For Canon Law, affinity can create an impediment to marriage in the event that one of the spouses intends to marry one of their relatives by affinity, in view of which, beforehand, they must regularize their civil status, whether widowhood or divorce.
Affinity in Chemistry
Within Chemistry, the affinity is the tendency that two or more chemical elements or compounds present to combine with each other. Therefore, when a chemical combination occurs, the cause of this phenomenon is attributed to the affinity that exists between the components. For example, the chemical affinity between alkali metals and halogen elements.
Electronic affinity
The electron affinity, also known as electron affinity, is the ability of atoms to accept one or more electrons. In this sense, the release of energy that occurs when an electron is captured by an atom in a gaseous state determines its electronic affinity, which, according to Thermodynamics, has a negative value. The more negative the electronic affinity, the greater the tendency of the atom to capture an electron.
Semantic Affinity
As semantic affinity we refer to the relations of proximity or analogy that are established between words of the same grammatical category with meanings that can be similar, although not strictly identical. The words in which this relationship exists are known as synonyms, and are very useful when it comes to enriching the language or giving it different nuances. There are different degrees of semantic affinity, for example, that which is identified in different words that strictly denote the same: language = language; It can also occur between words that do not always mean the same, but have a common connotative field: goal = objective; as well as between words that mean opposite things but, in certain contexts, they assume another semantic value: “Felipe is asleep”, to refer to that he is very clever, very clever.
Affinity in Pharmacology
Within Pharmacology, affinity is called the ability of a drug to bind with a cellular receptor in the body and form what is known as a drug-receptor complex. In this sense, it is affinity determines the success of the pharmacological action.
