Forms: 5 vailliaunce, vaylliaunce, 5–6 valiaunce, -yaunce, 6 -eaunce, 6–7, 9 valiance. [a. AF. valiance (1304), or ad. OF. vaillance (AF. vayllaunce), f. valiant, vaillant: see VALIANT a.]
1. Bravery, valor; = VALIANCY 1.
Very common in the 16th c.; now chiefly as a literary archaism.
1456. Sir G. Haye, Law Arms (S.T.S.), 53. The mekle valiaunce of schir Cipro consul of Rome.
1475. Bk. Noblesse, 55. For his gret trouthe, vailliaunce, and manhod … king Pirrus … offred to gyve hym the .iiijth part of his roiaume.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1570), 126. These fooles them boast of deedes of valiaunce And worthy actes done by them in battayle.
1581. A. Hall, Iliad, III. 50. When I was yong, and valiance had, and prowess.
1623. Bingham, Xenophon, 44. Let vs not expect, that other come and encourage vs to be braue and resolute, but let vs begin to excite other to valiance.
1807. G. Chalmers, Caledonia, I. III. vii. 387. His son exerted many acts of forward valiance.
1841. Thackeray, Drum, I. v. In spite of our valiance, The victory lay with Malbrook.
1894. Academy, 16 June, 491/3. Equal to them in business capacity, superior in persevering energy, in valiance of heart and true courage.
2. A valiant act or deed; a feat of valor or bravery. Now arch.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, V. viii. 173. Grete valyaunces, prowesses, and appertyces of werre were that day shewed.
1489. Caxton, Faytes of A., I. vii. 17. By cause he had founde so many valyaunces in the romayns.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. xix. (Arb.), 57. Places of assembly, where the company shalbe desirous to heare of old aduentures and valiaunces of noble knights in times past.
1879. Meredith, Egoist, I. ii. 21. Our cavalier’s is the poetic leg, a portent, a valiance.
