a. [f. LOATH a. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being loath.
† 1. In various senses of LOATH a.: Harmfulness, enmity; unpleasantness. Obs.
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 95. He wes dreihninde on þissere worlde … mid nane laðnesse and mid sibsumnesse.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 310. He … haueð … loðnesse of ham alle, as Ieremie witneð: Omnes amici ejus spreverunt eam.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 2949. It ledis vnto laithnes and vnlefe werkes.
1529. More, Dyaloge, III. Wks. 1229/1. You tel me the lothnes of the losse, and the comfort of the keeping.
2. Reluctance; disinclination. Const. to with inf.; rarely of with gerund.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 26589. And tell þi sins ilkan bi nam, for lathnes leue þou noght, ne scam.
c. 1528. Hen. VIII., in Fiddes, Wolsey (1726), II. 140. The other shall declare and shew the loathnes that is in him … to be displeased.
1529. Sir T. More, Suppl. Souls, II. Wks. 316/2. Diuers doctours allege diuers causes of his heauines and lothnes at yt time to depart & die.
1610. Shaks., Temp., II. i. 130. The faire soule her selfe Waigh’d betweene loathnesse and obedience.
1616. Hayward, Sanct. Troub. Soul, I. i. (1620), 16. How doth my resolution sticke betweene loathnesse and necessitie?
1637–50. Row, Hist. Kirk (1842), 545. A loathnes of running to close without clearnes.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. li. 547. The negligence or lothness of the Bishop, to prosecute them.
