godshipn.

1533 J. Heywood Play of Wether sig. Bii Yf it please your gracyous godshyp.

a1556 N. Udall Ralph Roister Doister (?1566) iv. i. sig. F.ij^v I thinke verily Neptunes mightie godshyp, Was angry with some that was in our shyp.

1652 P. Heylyn Cosmographie iv. i. sig. Bbbb It seemeth his Godship was not so much respected by Strangers.

1690 J. Dryden Amphitryon i. i. 1 Your Name and mine were us'd with less reverence than became our Godships.

1792 J. Wolcot Lyric Epist. to Ld. Macartney in Wks. (1812) III. 136 The Man of Straw Flew up and put their Godships in a fright.

1823 Ld. Byron Don Juan: Canto XIV lxxv. 152 I..beg his British Godship's humble pardon.

1829 T. Hook Bank to Barnes 118 Their godships dead drunk must sleep under the table.

1896 E. Arnold Bk. Good Counsels 92 I am an ambassador from his Godship the Moon.

1920 C. Van Vechten Tiger in House v. 152 The goddess..promised, as a special favour to his godship, that she would return the beloved puss in three centuries.

1994 D. Griffin Satire iii. 86 The gods, addressed without ceremony in Juvenal as vos.., become ‘Your Godships’.

1592 L. Andrewes Wonderfull Combate vi. f. 78^v Because there was a Godship, a higher degree than hers, she was not content.

1648 J. Beaumont Psyche xviii. cliv. 358/2 But fools they should have hir'd a friend Which might his Godship from our hands defend.

1649 J. Milton Εικονοκλαστης xxvii. 220 It is..beneath the honour of a..free Nation, to begg and supplicate the Godship of one fraile Man.

1705 E. Hickeringill Priest-craft 51 He accepted the Godship and Adoration with as much Devotion, as Herod.

1752 W. Warburton Serm. Psalm cxliv. 3 in Wks. (1788) V. 30 To make God..the..inspector into human actions, is..returning him to the people, travested to the mortal size of local godship.

1785 A. Adams Let. 12 Aug. in T. Jefferson Papers (1997) XXVII. 751 Godships..are so saleable in Paris that I think they are to be had for Six livres a peice... Apollo I hold in the first rank as the Patron of Musick.

1805 Monthly Rev. Oct. 158 It is..equally difficult to explain the priority of the Father, without destroying the Godship of the Son and Spirit.

1858 C. Merivale Hist. Romans under Empire VI. lv. 313 Lucan..challenged him to choose what godship he would assume in heaven.

1954 J. R. R. Tolkien Let. 4 Nov. (1995) 205 Sauron, the lieutenant of the Prime Dark Lord, who..was claiming both kingship and godship over Men of Middle-earth.

2003 New Yorker 4 Aug. 79/3 Emerson's vision of man coming into his godship through the conquest of nature reads suspiciously like an apology for westward expansion.