[f. as prec. + -NESS.]

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  1.  The state or condition of being contrary: opposed nature, opposition.

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1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VIII. i. (1495), 294. Contrarynesse of the qualytees.

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1511.  Colet, Serm. Conform. & Ref., in Phenix (1708), II. 7. The contrariness of our own evil life which is contrary both to God and Christ.

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  2.  Self-willed opposition, perverseness, perversity; = CONTRARIOUSNESS.

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1642.  Rogers, Naaman, 101. Eminently (for slinesse and contrarinesse) in resisting the worke of conversion.

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1878.  Mrs. Stowe, Poganuc P., xxix. 242. The very sympathy they long for, by a strange contrariness of nature, they throw back on their friends as an injury.

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1880.  Academy, 14 Aug., 114/1. Mr. Arnold, indeed, is an Englishman quand même, and somebody might very well devise an oxymoron … to express his ‘contrariness’

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1882.  Mrs. Riddell, Pr. Wales’s Garden-Party, 155. Humouring his contrariness.

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