[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being explicit; distinctness of statement or (formerly) of apprehension; freedom from ambiguity or obscurity of meaning; outspokenness.
1647. Jer. Taylor, Lib. Proph., xii. 187. Whose judgement [of speculative doctrine] is … with lesse curiosity and explicitenesse declared in Scripture.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1737), IV. vii. 284. The knowledge of this article … was by no means received with … explicitness in the ancient Jewish church, that it is now in the Christian.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), I. xxxii. 236. An explicitness that can admit of no mistake.
1826. Disraeli, Viv. Grey, II. IV. v. 206. I would be explicit; but explicitness is not the language of such as I am.
1873. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue, § 581 (ed. 2), 537. That explicitness of syntax.
