Also 1 hlǽnnes, -nys, 4 leenes, 4–5 lenesse, 5 lennesse, leynes, 5–6 lenenes(se, 6 leanenesse, leanes, Sc. leinnes. [f. LEAN a. + -NESS.] The condition or quality of being lean; thinness; meagerness; poverty (of land); barrenness; etc.
a. 1000. in Napier, Glosses, 192/33. Macie, mid hlænnesse.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Hom. (Thorpe), I. 522. Hwæt is þæt man besette his geðanc on nyðerlicum þingum, buton swilce modes hlænnys?
1382. Wyclif, Ezek. xxiv. 23. Ȝe shulen … faile for leenes in ȝoure wickidnessis.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. x. (1495), 116. Tomoche lenesse of the forheed and reuelynge of the skynne.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 86. If þat … þe lymes ben mene bitwene fatnes & lenenes.
c. 1400. trans. Secreta Secret., Gov. Lordsh., 115. He þat hauys a mene fface, in chekys and templys, bowynge to Lennesse.
1547. Boorde, Dyetary, xvii. 276. The fatnes of flesshe is not so moche nutrytyue as the leenes of flesshe.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 104. Better all be fatte … Than linger in leannesse.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., I. i. 112. The poore King Reignier, whose large style Agrees not with the leannesse of his purse.
1611. Speed, Theat. Gt. Brit., x. (1614), 19/1. A sand … which being spread upon the face of the earth, bettereth the leannesse thereof for grain.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 147. The women … incline rather to corpulency than leannesse.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. iv. 66. The sacred kine … fit symbols of the leanness or the fertility of future years.
1871. Morley, Carlyle, in Crit. Misc., Ser. I. 233. A most unlovely leanness of judgment.
