[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality, state or condition of being entire.
1. Wholeness, completeness; undiminished, unbroken or undivided condition. In its entireness: as a whole. Of qualities, states, actions, etc.: Thoroughness, fullness, perfectness.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1637), 132. To reprint them in their first entirenesse.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. v. § 2. Ee 4. A steme [of a tree] … hath a dimension and quantitie of entyrenes and continuance, before it come to discontinue & break it self into Armes.
1614. Bp. Hall, Heaven upon Earth, § 18. One is sicke of his neighbour’s field, whose misshapen angles … hinder his Lordship of entirenesse.
1680. S. Mather, Iren., 11. A Church in an Island … must not be denyed intireness of Jurisdiction within itself.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 75. You may know when it is well Ground, by the evenness, and entireness of the Edge all the way.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, Wks. 1842, II. 325/1. They come to attack your king,… together with the entireness of the empire.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., II. 29, note. That satisfying entireness, that complete adequateness of the manner to the matter which so charms us in Anacreon.
1861. Mill, Utilit., iii. 49. That entireness of sympathy with all others.
1870. Bowen, Logic, i. 7. We can more easily grasp it in thought, and contemplate it at once in its entireness.
† 2. Wholeness or oneness of feeling with another; close friendship, familiarity, intimacy.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 171. Their alliance or rather meere entirenesse with Spaine.
1612–5. Bp. Hall, Contempl. O. T., VI. i. Wks. (1625), 909. Whither shall wee impute it, but to his more intyrenesse with God.
1620. Horæ Subseciuæ, 43. Their entirenesse and inwardnesse with the men of the greatest name.
1673. Ladies Call., II. § 2. 30. That entireness and affection which is the soul of marriage.
† 3. Wholeness of feeling or thought; integrity, honesty, sincerity. Obs.
1549. Coverdale, Erasm. Par. Coloss. ii. 5. If I espye your entiernes and godly condicions either to be in ieoperdie or to be inconstant & wauer. Ibid., 2 Cor. viii. 18. Whose faythe and entyrenesse in preachynge the gospell … is well tryed.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, I. § 56. 98. An especiall point of sincerity consisteth in the fore-said intirenesse.
