[f. as prec. + -NESS.]
1. The character or state of being voluminous or bulky; copiousness, extensiveness.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., ii. 6. The Christian worship being so pure as to abhor from the voluminousness of Judaizing ceremonies.
1687. Winstanley, Lives Eng. Poets, 147. Here he did begin and finish the translation of so many authors, that considering their voluminousness, a man would think he had done nothing else.
1764. D. E. Baker, Companion Playh., II. s.v. Beaumont, Our Admiration might fix itself in the opposite Extreme,… when we look back on the Voluminousness of his Works, and then enquire into the Time allowed him for them.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), I. 443. Having … been wrought up to the highest possible pitch of voluminousness, indistinctness, and unintelligibility.
1877. Owen, Wellesley’s Desp., p. xvii. The distressing voluminousness of the materials is undoubtedly a difficulty in the way of the enquirer.
2. The quality of forming many coils or folds.
1820. Shelley, Vision of Sea, 141. The jar, and the rattle Of solid bones crushed by the infinite stress Of the snake’s adamantine voluminousness.
