[f. FINE a. + -NESS.] The quality or state of being fine.
1. Choice or superior quality.
c. 1400. Test. Love, II. (1560), 291/1. Margarite … sheweth in it selfe by fineness of colour, whether [etc.].
1513. Fitzherb., Surv., 3. The fynenesse of the grasse and the goodnesse of an acre.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xii. 514.
| Of Britaines Forrests all (from th’lesse vnto the more) | |
| For finenesse of her turfe surpassing. |
1847. Tennyson, The Princess, II. 133.
| Some men’s [heads] were small; not they the least of men; | |
| For often fineness compensated size. |
† b. concr. Articles of good quality. Obs.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1676), 40. For no man is so madly disposed or simple-witted, as to bring into so poor and mean houses, bedsteads with silver feet, imbrodered coverlets, or counterpoints of purple silk, neither yet plate of gold nor of silver, nor such other like costly furniture and fineness, as those things require to wait upon them: because the beds must be answerable to the meanness of the house, the furniture of the beds must be suitlike to the same, and all other household stuff, diet, meat, and drink agreeable to the rest.
2. Freedom from foreign admixture, purity.
a. in metals: usually in the sense of comparative freedom from alloy.
1487. Act 4 Hen. VII., c. 2, Pream. It causeth Money … to be made worse in Fineness than it should be.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 95. The golde wherof they are made, is natiue, and of much lyke finenes to that wherof the florenes are coyned.
1638. Penkethman, Artach., K iv. The finenesse of their Coine, which did farre exceed ours.
1704. Royal Procl., 18 June, in Lond. Gaz., No. 4029/1. The Currency of all Pieces … shall … stand Regulated, according to their Weight and Fineness.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 640. The money of the kingdom should be recoined according to the old standard both of weight and of fineness.
b. Of a liquid: Clearness.
1657. Howell, Londinop., 13. The Land streams or white waters, do oftentimes thicken the finenesse of the River, in so much that after a Land floud, ’tis usual to take up Haddocks with ones hand beneath the Bridge, as they float aloft on the water, their eyes being so blinded with the thicknesse of the water, that they cannot see whither they swimme;
1664. Evelyn, Pomona, Gen. Advt. (1729), 87. To broach the Vessel with a small Piercer, and in that Hole fit a Peg, and now and then (two or three times in a day) draw a little, and see what Fineness it is of; for when it is bottled it must not be perfectly fine.
3. Fine or striking appearance, handsomeness. Of dress: Showiness, splendour.
1553. Eden, Treat. Newe Ind. (Arb.), 14. The chiefe cytie where the King is resident, is in situacion and fynenes, much lyke vnto the cytie of Milayne.
1667. Decay Chr. Piety, v. 87. The fineness of Cloaths destroys the ease, so that it often helps men to pain, but can never rid than of any.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Praise Wealth, Wks. 1730, I. 84. Under your auspices, this lord, in spight of all his unpopular actions, carries away the hearts of the people, not by the fineness of his address, or any peculiar desert, but by your favour.
1719. London & Wise, The Complete Gard’ner, p. xxv. In the beauty and fineness of the Trees, there is no comparison to be made.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XVI. v. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses.
1841. L. Hunt, Seer, II. (1864), 76. He wrote to the Prince of Orange upon the fineness of his troops.
4. Slenderness, tenuity, thinness. Of a point or edge: Keenness, sharpness.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helthe, II. (1540), 17/1. By fourme is vnderstand grossenesse, fynenesse, thicknesse, or thynnesse.
1657. J. Smith, Myst. Rhet., 69. Litotes, λιτότης, tenuitas, tenuity, smalnesse or finenesse, derived from λιτός, [litos] tenuis, small or fine.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 193. A Screw, whose Thread shall be of the same fineness that the Screw and the Shank is of.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 352. The wire is exposed to the fire, and it is then in the proper state for being reduced to the utmost degree of fineness it is capable of sustaining.
1837. Landor, Pentameron, Wks. 1846, II. 312/1. A poet often does more and better than he is aware at the time, and seems at last to know as little as a silkworm knows about the fineness of her thread.
5. The quality of being composed of fine particles, filaments, threads, or material in general: the opposite of coarseness.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 182. Taffataes of transparent finenesse.
1770. Chesterf., Misc. Wks., II. lxix. 538. Procure me some Irish linen to make me four dozen of shirts, much about the same fineness and price of the last which you got me.
1846. McCulloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 505. The great object of the agriculturist has been to increase the weight of the carcase and the quality of the wool; and it seems very difficult, if not quite impossible, to accomplish this without injuring the fineness of the fleece.
1860. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., V. IX. vii. § 5. 268. A gentleman’s first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body, which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies—one may say, simply ‘fineness of nature.’
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 158/1. The degree of fineness to which this grinding is carried varies very considerably in different manufactories and districts.
6. Of immaterial things, e.g., of thought and speech: Subtly-refined quality, delicacy, subtlety.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 209.
| Those that with the finenesse of their soules, | |
| By Reason guide his execution. |
1607. R. C[arew], trans. H. Estienne’s World of Wonders, To the Reader, A iv. I haue not attained to the Venus of the French, the finenesse, fitnesse, and featnesse of the phrase.
1654. Jer. Taylor, Real Pres., 205. It were a finenesse of Spirit to be able to believe the two parts of a contradiction.
1689–90. Temple, Ess. Learning, Wks. 1731, I. 167. That Language [the French] has much more Fineness and Smoothness at this Time.
1718. Prior, Wks., Pref. The Softness of Her Sex, and the Fineness of Her Genius, conspire to give Her a very distinguishing Character.
1780. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, April. He sung and played with a fineness that somewhat resembled the man we looked at at Piozzi’s benefit.
1856. Masson, Ess., x. 452. Those peculiar finenesses and flights of intellectual activity which are native to verse, are then simply not developed.
1878. E. Jenkins, Haverholme, 98. Engaging in the delicate fineness and fragrance of her flattery.
b. A nice or subtle point or matter; a subtlety.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. ii. 17. Thinking that he had now attained to the perfection of his love, and that there was no need of these finenesses, and niceties betweene them.
a. 1716. South, Serm. Extemp. Prayers (1737), II. iv. 130. In matters of wit, and finenesses of imagination.
7. Subtlety, astuteness, cunning; a stratagem, artifice. Cf. FINESSE 3, 4. Now rare.
1546. St. Papers Hen. VIII., XI. 374. He said that the fynenesse of the Frenchemen was suche, that they wold gyve a thowsande to wynne a myllion.
1581. T. Howell, Deuises (1879), 233. Your curious hed may finenesse frame.
1658. Cleveland, Rustick Rampant (1687), 469. By this Fineness they are gained to quit the Gates.
1663. Flagellum; or O. Cromwell (1672), 55. For his party had tryed all ways to over-reach the Presbyterean with fineness and Artifice.
1685. H. More, Cursory Refl., A 1 a. For the just Interest of the Church and Crown of England, as well as against all Fanatical Fury, as against all the Finenesses of Rome.
1872. Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette.
| And so fill up the gap where force might fail | |
| With skill and fineness. |
