[f. SOBER a. + -NESS.] The state or character of being sober; sobriety:
a. In respect of the appetites.
c. 1300. Cursor M., 27408. Gains glotory [is assigned] soburnes o mete.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Pars. T., ¶ 834. Sobrenesse also, that restreyneth the outrage of drinke.
14[?]. Tundale’s Vis., 1869. Thay … kepte hir bodyes ay fre From lechery in chastite, And thay loved soburnes ay.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1570), 258. By sobernes subduing their sensualitie.
1530. Tindale, Answ. More, 8. The soberness and chastising of the members.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Sobriety or Soberness, a Vertue by which one abstains from eating and drinking more than is requisite.
1780. Mirror, No. 73. 291. Habits of virtue and soberness.
1861. Ruffini, Dr. Antonio, ii. Owing to the care and proverbial soberness of the postilions.
b. In respect of demeanor, actions, etc.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, x. (Matthew), 444. [He] sobryt þam … vith softnes & vith sobrenes.
1382. Wyclif, Rom. xii. 3. To not sauere … more than it behoueth for to kunne, but for to kunne to sobrenesse.
1463. G. Ashby, Prisoner’s Refl., 302. With humylyte and soburnes.
c. 1470. Rauf Coilȝear, 525. Lat se how we may disseuer with sobernes aneuch.
1528. More, Dyaloge, III. Wks. 233/2. Ye hole byble was long before his dayes … with deuocion & sobrenes wel and reuerently red.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. V., 1. Turnyng insolencie and wyldnes into grauitie and sobernes.
1648. Fairfax, etc. Remonstrance, 6. In all humblenesse and sobernesse of minde.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 480. He would not stoop To conquer those by jocular exploits, Whom truth and soberness assail’d in vain.
1825. Cobbett, Rural Rides, 232. I … stood still,… looking, in silent soberness, into the window.
