[f. LOVELY a. + -NESS.] The quality of being lovely; exquisite beauty; † lovableness.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, cxlviii. 13. Til whaim na thynge may be like in fayrhed & luflynes & in kyndnes.
1535. Coverdale, Song Sol. vi. 4. Thou art pleasaunt (o my loue) euen as louelynesse itself.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonn., iv. Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
1628. Coke, On Litt., 395 a. For a farewell to our jurisprudent, I wish unto him … the lovelinesse of temperance, the stability of fortitude [etc.].
1657. Baxter, Agst. Quakers, 2. A Catholick Love to all Christians … proportionable to their several degrees of loveliness.
1741. Richardson, Pamela, I. Introd. 20. It adorn’d her with such unpresum’d Increase of Loveliness.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. xxiv. Cheeks … which but an hour ago Blush’d at the praise of their own loveliness.
1818. Keats, Endym., I. 2. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases.
1884. Pae, Eustace, 8. It was a face of surpassing loveliness.
b. pl. Lovely qualities, traits of loveliness. rare.
1790. G. Walker, Serm., II. xxi. 131. Let us adopt … into the rule of our lives, all the lovelinesses, which compose the character of the disciple of Christ.
