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fellness|ˈfɛlnɪs|
[f. fell a. + -ness.]
The quality of being ‘fell’: see senses of the adj.
1. Fierceness, harshness, cruelty; † sternness, severity. Now (exc. in north. dial.) only poet. and rhetorical: Appalling cruelty, malignity, or destructive effect.
c1380Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. I. 55 Oþir servantis..tellen to God þis felnes and preien him of venjance. 1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VII. 151 [Gregory VI] a man of religioun and felnes [Lat. severitatis]. a1400Relig. Pieces fr. Thornton MS. (1867) 27 Þis worde Gaste sowunes sumwhate into fellenes. c1440Gesta Rom. xci. 417 (Add. MS.) In a grete felnesse and angre he sente messyngers for the foxe. 1587Misfortunes Arthur iv. ii. in Hazl. Dodsley IV. 323 No fear nor fellness fail'd on either side. 1678R. L'Estrange Seneca's Mor. (1702) 297 There is a Ghastly kind of Felness in the Aspect of a Mad Dog. 1719Young Busiris i. i, Such was the fellness of his boiling rage. 1814Cary Dante (Chandos ed.) 125 Look how that beast to felness hath relaps'd From having lost correction of the spur. 1865Carlyle Fredk. Gt. VI. xv. xiii. 98 A fellness of humour against Friedrich.
b. Keenness, fierceness (of wind, etc.); angry painfulness. Obs. exc. dial.
c1374Chaucer Boeth. i. vi. 25 Þe felnesse of the wynde. 1642Rogers Naaman 466 If that [the felon upon the hand] were out the felnesse would cease.
†2. Shrewdness, wisdom. Obs.
1382Wyclif Job v. 13 That caccheth wise men in ther felnesse. 1382― Prov. i. 4 That felnesse be ȝeue to litle childer. |