[f. next + -NESS.] The quality of being cowardly; cowardice.
1553. Grimalde, Cicero’s Offices (1556), 53 b. Leste … slouthfulnesse, or cowardlinesse, or some such thing appeare.
1614. Bp. Hall, Recollect. Treat., 1011. It is a base cowardlinesse … to thinke of running away.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time (1766), II. 174. The ill nature of the one side, and the cowardliness of the other.
1827. Coleridge, Table-t., 21 July. The cowardliness and impolicy of the Nonconformists, at the Restoration.
1876. Miss Yonge, Womankind, iv. 26. The cowardliness of the action.
