[f. LOWLY a. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being lowly.
1. Meekness, humility; an instance of this.
a. 1493. Hen. Pr. Wales, Ep. to Hen. IV. (Nat. MSS. I. 37). Alle the lowlinesse that any subget kan thenkke or devise.
c. 1440. Partonope, 224. Lat fayle no curtasy And lowlynesse bothe to smalle and grete.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., iv. (Percy Soc.), 20. Than were endued Her crystall eyes full of lowlenes.
1535. Coverdale, Prov. xvi. 1. Lowlynes goeth before honoure.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., II. i. 22. ’Tis a common proofe, That Lowlynesse is young Ambitions Ladder.
1764. J. Woolman, Jrnl. (1840), 127. By so travelling … I might set an example of lowliness before the eyes of their masters.
1855. Tennyson, Maud, I. xii. v. O Maud were sure of Heaven If lowliness could save her.
1864. Pusey, Lect. Daniel (1876), 285. Greatness in lowliness.
2. Low state or condition; abjectness, poverty.
1596. Spenser, State Irel. (Globe ed.), 614/2. They say that they continued in that lowlyness, untill the time that the division betweene the two howses of Lancaster and Yorke arose.
1891. T. K. Cheyne, Origin Psalter, vii. 353. Sympathy … made the Messiah like unto common men in their lowliness.
