[f. CHASTE a. + -NESS.] The quality or state of being chaste.
1. Chastity, sexual purity. arch.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Sec. Nonnes T., 88. Pure chaastnesse of virginitee.
1580. Sidney, Arcadia (1622), 258. In her let beautie both, and chastnesse fully raigne.
1683. Cave, Ecclesiastici, 415. So great a Patron of modesty and chastness, that he prohibited the Marriages of Cousin-germans.
1718. Freethinker, No. 108. 20. It tends … to corrupt the Sobriety and Chasteness of the People’s Morals.
2. Purity of style, etc.; see CHASTE a. 7, 8.
Mod. Nothing can surpass the chasteness of the ornamentation.
