offensivenessn.

1618 S. Latham New & 2nd Bk. Falconrie viii. 23 Feed with meate cleane dressed..to hold the stomacke right..for otherwise..there is no content to be had..but altogether offensiuenesse and vexation.

1650 T. Venner Baths of Bathe 357 In regard of their offensivenesse to the stomack.

a1688 W. Clagett Seventeen Serm. (1699) 83 The offensiveness of these offences is..abated.

1756 S. Hales in Philos. Trans. 1755 (Royal Soc.) 49 344 The smell of the ascending vapour was very offensive, which offensiveness abated much in five minutes.

1775 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 65 60 The difficulty, therefore, in the conduct of the process, and the offensiveness of part of the apparatus, made some less exceptionable method of producing the impregnation desirable.

1825 N. Amer. Rev. Oct. 338 The offensiveness of the passage is in some degree aggravated by the confusion of literal and metaphorical language.

1856 J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) II. viii. 244 The offensiveness of the evil was disguised by the charm of the good.

1874 T. Hardy Far from Madding Crowd I. viii. 111 It came from the old man in the background, whose general offensiveness and spiteful ways were barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle he contributed to general laughs.

1906 J. Galsworthy Man of Prop. 12 The subconscious offensiveness of their attitude.

1940 Sci. Monthly 50 454/1 This can be nothing but a gratuitous piece of personal offensiveness for which there is no foundation.

1996 ‘E. Lathen’ Brewing up Storm (1998) xxi. 273 In addition to being curt and demanding, he was impersonal to the point of offensiveness.