polarity

When applied to solvents, this rather ill-defined term covers their overall solvation capability (solvationpower) for solutes (i.e. in chemical equilibria: reactants and products; in reaction rates: reactants and activated complex; in light absorptions: ions or molecules in the ground and excited state), which in turn depends on the action of all possible, nonspecific and specific, intermolecular interactions between solute ions or molecules and solvent molecules, excluding such interactions leading to definite chemical alterations of the ions or molecules of the solute. Occasionally, the term solvent polarity is restricted to nonspecific solute/solvent interactions only (i.e. to van der Waals forces).