[f. BEASTLY + -NESS.] Beastly quality; resemblance to a beast in various points, e.g., unintelligence, rudeness, brutality, cowardice, gluttony, drunkenness, filthiness; bestiality.
c. 1370. Lay-Folk’s Mass-Bk., App. III. 122. Alle beestelynesse of synne.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 33. Bestylynesse [1499 bestlynesse], bestialitas.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 110. Beestlynesse or rude maner.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 769. By their beastliness … they had like to haue made all the Army fly.
a. 1618. Raleigh, To Son, ix. in Rem. (1661), 102. A Drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastlinesse.
1751. H. Walpole, Lett. H. Mann (1834), II. 388. Whithed … had forgiven all his elder brother’s beastliness.
1854. Duff, in Life, xxi. (1881), 342. Such drunkenness, such beastliness, such unblushing shamelessness.
b. concr. = ‘beastly stuff.’
1834. L. Hunt, Lond. Jrnl., No. 8. 58. The ale too!… not the beastliness of these days.
