[f. WAYWARD a. + -NESS.] The quality of being wayward (see the various senses of the adj.).
1382. Wyclif, Rom. i. 29. Fulfillid with al wickidnesse,… couetyse, weywardnesse [Vulg. nequitia].
c. 1450–1530. Myrr. Our Ladye, 152. Wretched were that persone that for eny waywardenes of harte wolde be vnreconcyled … at that tyme.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades, II. vi. 165. Our faulte and not the waywardnesse of God [non Dei morositatem] is the cause.
1676. Hale, Contempl., II. Lord’s Prayer, 116. Therefore in great condescension to the waywardness of our Natures, he is often pleased to keep the Treasury of outward Blessings in his own hands [etc.].
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, V. 528. The barbarous waywardness that could deprive me … of the exquisite felicity of my lot!
1823. Lamb, Elia, Poor Relations. The waywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse malignity.
1853. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xviii. For all his waywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to be in earnest ‘this time.’
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (ed. 4), II. vi. 137. There was a waywardness in the course of the disease … for which it is difficult to account.
1872. Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette, 1150. He, who lets His heart be stirr’d with any foolish heat At any gentle damsel’s waywardness.
1919. Harold Spender, in 19th Century, May, 897. It [Parliament] has rallied the people from the waywardness of rebellion.
¶ In lists of ‘Proper Terms’ mentioned as the typical attribute of haywards.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, f vij. A waywardnes of haywardis.
