[f. COMELY a. + -NESS.] The quality of being comely.
1. Pleasing appearance; gracefulness or beauty of form; handsomeness. (In mod. use generally denoting a homelier style of beauty: cf. COMELY a.)
c. 1369. Chaucer, Dethe Blaunche, 827. So had she Surmountede hem al of beaute Of maner and of comelynesse.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 56. Bodies of natural bewtie & comelynesse.
1611. Bible, Isa. liii. 2. Hee hath no forme nor comelinesse.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, I. ii. 7. She was always thought comely, and comeliness … having not so much to lose as beauty had, would hold, when that would evaporate.
1836. Hor. Smith, Tin Trump. (1876), 353. Moral beauty … is as superior to superficial comeliness as mind is to matter.
1846. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., I. iii. 180. Distinguished by the comeliness of his person.
2. Suitableness, becomingness, seemliness, decency, propriety.
1399. Langl., Rich. Redeles, III. 184. Ffor curtesie, ffor comlynesse, ne ffor his kynde herte.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 89. Comlyness or seemelynesse, decencia.
1561. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573), 308. Agaynst the comlynes of sincere religion.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Friendship (Arb.), 181. How many Things are there, which a Man cannot, with any Face or Comelines, say or doe Himselfe?
1645. Ussher, Body Div. (1647), 225. What is fasting? An abstinence for a time from all the commodities and pleasures of this life, so far as comelinesse and necessity will suffer.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., III. iv. (1849), 164. To conduct themselves with incredible sobriety and comeliness.
