[See -NESS.]
† 1. Ignorance; want of skill, knowledge or good-breeding; foolishness. Obs.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. III. 33. Schal no lewednesse hem lette, þe lewedeste þat I loue, Þat he ne worþ avaunset.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Melib., Prol. 3. Thou makest me So wery of thy verray lewednesse.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VII. 299. Among his oþer lewednes and folie.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 301/2. Lewdenesse of clergy, illitteratura.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., viii. 21 (Harl. MS.). I am a foole, And he is a wise man, And þerfore he shold not so liȝtely haue levid my lewdenesse.
1540. Hyrde, trans. Vives’ Instr. Chr. Wom. (1592), R vj. What a lewdnesse is it, not to consider how vaine a thing that money is.
1563. Homilies, II. Agst. Images, III. (1859), 265. There is like foolishness and lewdness in decking of our images.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 80. That is supposed a loose kinde of writing, to talke of any man unreverently, for therein is leudnesse discovered.
† 2. Wickedness; evil behavior. Obs.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VI. 239. So it is greet lewednesse and wrecchednesse to forgendre what is detty and riȝtful.
c. 1460. Sir R. Ros, La Belle Dame sanz Mercy, 607 (655). That to þe werste turneth by his leudenesse a yifte of grace.
1563. Homilies, II. Repentance, II. (1859), 541. When any thing ordained of God is by the lewdness of men abused.
1579. Fulke, Refut. Rastell, 736. It is great leudenesse and deceiptfulnes to vrge the termes vsed by the doctors.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 321. The leaudnesse of the Cappadocians grew into a Proverbe; if any were enormously wicked, he was therefore called a Cappadocian.
1623. Bingham, Xenophon, 99. What Citie, as friend, will receiue vs, when they see such lewdnesse in our conuersation?
3. Lasciviousness, lascivious behavior.
1579. Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 44. A perfect wit is never bewitched with leaudenesse neither entised with lasciviousnesse.
a. 1592. H. Smith, Serm. (1614), 568. If harlots intice thee to leaudnesse,… flie from them.
1661. Pepys, Diary, 17 Aug. The lewdnesse and beggary of the Court.
1685. H. More, Illustrat., 155. Their gross idolatries and sensual Ludenesses.
1754. Sherlock, Disc. (1759), I. iv. 145. The Lewdness of their History renders it unfit to be narrated.
1769. Blackstone, Comm., IV. iv. 64. The last offence which I shall mention … is that of open and notorious lewdness; either by frequenting houses of ill-fame … or by some grossly scandalous and public indecency.
