Also 1 lætnys, 4–5 latnes(se. [OE. lætnes, f. læt LATE a.1 + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being late. a. Slowness. (Now dial.) b. The being advanced in some period of time. c. The being behind usual or proper time. d. Recency.
c. 1050. Byrhtferth’s Handboc, in Anglia (1885), VIII. 308. Eall swa þære sunnan lætnys binnan feower ʓeara fæce.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xviii. (Egipciane), 19. Þe latnes of þe houre.
c. 1400. trans. Secreta Secret., Gov. Lordsh., 89. Þe souerayn vertu maynteignes alle þinges, ffor it geues latnesse, and it makys swyftnesse.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, viii. (1617), 112. Thus do ye see the latenesse of the Westerne Nations.
1727. Swift, Lett. to Gay, 23 Nov., Wks. 1841, II. 610. Your lateness in life … might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the eldest men may hope to see changes in a court.
1747. G. Costard, Observ. Job, 27. Will it not be a farther Proof of the Lateness of the Composition [sc. the Book of Job]?
1840. Thirlwall, Greece, VII. 311. The lateness of the season.
1874. Sayce, Compar. Philol., vi. 216. The existence of compounds in a language may be considered a mark of lateness.
1881. J. G. Fitch, Lect. Teaching, 74. A systematic record for each pupil of these particulars:… (3) absence; (4) lateness.
1885. Bookseller, May, 454/2. Its palpable lateness of date.
1887. S. Cheshire Gloss., Latn’ss, delay, slowness.
