[f. COMMON a. + -NESS.]
1. The state or quality of being common to, or shared by, more than one; community. rare.
1530. Palsgr., 207/2. Commonesse, communité.
1553. Grimalde, Cicero’s Offices, I. (1558), 26. Conuersation and commonnesse of table counseylynges.
1657. W. Guthrie, Christian’s Gt. Interest, vi. (1825), 147. Communion is a commonness or a common interest between God and a man.
1715. trans. Pancirollus’ Rerum Mem., I. IV. xvii. 224. By the commonness of these two Elements [Fire and Water], was hinted the Community ’twixt Husband and Wife.
1828. E. Irving, Last Days, 120. The commonness of blood is the great occasion of affection.
b. The quality of being public or generally used.
1848. W. Bartlett, Egypt to Pal., xi. (1879), 239. The commonness of the thoroughfare.
2. The quality of being usual or of ordinary occurrence, frequency.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. (1617), 352. Lest men should waxe cold with the commonnesse of that, the strangenesse whereof at the first inflamed them.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, III. xxx. (1840), 171. The commonness of those thunder-bolts caused their contempt.
1669. H. Oldenburg, in Phil. Trans., II. 430. Emeraulds are … of much less value than they were formerly, by reason of their commonness.
1876. Gladstone, Synchr. Homer., 131. I would appeal … to the simple and homely test of commonness of use.
3. The quality of being ordinary or undistinguished; plainness of style.
1820. L. Hunt, Indicator, No. 51 (1822), I. 402. A writer, who … knows how to extract a common thing from commonness.
1842. Mrs. Browning, Grk. Chr. Poets, 200. Wordsworth … was daring in his commonness.
b. Meanness of character or intellect; want of excellence or distinction. (A less condemnatory term than vulgarity, in which the meanness becomes offensive.)
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xxxvi. That personal pride and unreflecting egoism which I have already called commonness.
1885. Athenæum, 23 May, 666/3. The smooth dulness of gentility … we call commonness.
1890. Spectator, 14 June. Commonness is the mark of his literary style: commonness stamps his oratory … and a vein of commonness runs … throughout his enthusiasms.
