[f. prec. + -NESS.] Childless condition or quality.
1815. C. Phillips, in Antijacobin Rev., XLVIII. App. 609. Within four short days, he deliberately reduced those parents to childlessness, [etc.].
1860. Pusey, Min. Proph., 60. Childlessness … is the appropriate and frequent punishment of sins of the flesh.
1865. Trollope, Can you forgive her, xli. She recurred … to her own childlessness, and to his extreme desire for an heir.
