[f. WELSH a. + -NESS.] Welsh character.
1682. W. Richards, Wallogr., 82. The shabbiness of their Bodies and the Baoticalness [? = Boeotian dullness] of their Souls, and that, which cannot any otherwise be exprest, the Welchness of both.
1797. T. Twining, in Recreat. & Stud. (1882), 203. I was much amused with the extreme Welshness of the good lady.
1894. Athenæum, 22 Dec., 866/3. Prof. Rhys … is not backward in recognizing what may be called the Welshness of the whole body of histories concerned with the ‘blameless king’ and his knights of the Round Table.
1912. Amelia H. Stirling, Life J. H. Stirling, iv. 68. In spite of the strangeness, the Welshness, of Ponytpool, Stirling had been disappointed to find that it was not in Wales.
