Also 5–6 lustines, -ynes(se. [f. LUSTY + -NESS.]
† 1. Pleasantness, pleasure, delight. Also, beauty of attire (cf. LUSTY a. 2 b). Obs.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, III. 128 (177). Beth glad and draweth yow to lustynesse.
1473. Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton), I. xx. (1859), 28. Thou myght … euer abyde in ioye and lustynesse.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, lxiv. 2. Delytsum lyllie of everie lustynes.
a. 1547. Surrey, in Tottel’s Misc. (Arb.), 3. The sonne hath twise brought furth his tender grene, And clad the earth in liuely lustinesse.
a. 1550[?]. in Dunbar’s Poems, 327. Dewoyd langour, and leif in lustines.
2. Vigor, robustness; † energy, activity.
c. 1325. Song of Mercy, 160, in E. E. P. (1862), 123. And lustines his leue haþ take. We loue so slouþe and harlotrie.
a. 1366[?]. Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 1282. And after daunced … Youthe, fulfild of lustinesse.
1413. Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton, 1483), IV. i. 58. That other [tree] drye withoute ony maner lustynesse or verdure.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., xl. (Percy Soc.), 203. My youth was past, and all my lustynes.
1607. Markham, Caval., I. (1617), 33. For a Horse … of youth, strength and lustinesse, eight Mares are a full number.
1740. Dyer, Ruins of Rome, 476. For now the frame no more is girt with strength Masculine, nor in lustiness of heart Laughs at the winter storm.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea, II. ix. (1877), 102. He had too much lustiness of mind … to be capable of living on terms of close intelligence with the … statesmen of Berlin.
† 3. Lustfulness; carnal nature or character.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 5118. Whan thou hast … spent thy youthe in ydilnesse, In waste, and woful lustinesse.
c. 1555. Harpsfield, Divorce Hen. VIII. (Camden), 247. Lest the vice of concupiscence and lustiness … should … break forth.
1580. Frampton, Dial. Yron & Steele, 160. The powders of it [steele] are … good for the Gonorea passio, and for the lustinesse of man.
1619. Fotherby, Atheom., I. x. § 5 (1622), 111. When the heate of that lust and lustinesse is past, and they be come againe vnto their cold blood.
