Forms: α. 4–6 steernesse, stiernesse, sternesse, 5 sturnesse: β. 4–5 sturnenesse, sternenysse, 7 sternenes; 6 sternnesse, 7– sternness. [f. STERN a. + -NESS.]
1. Severity of disposition or mood; rigor in punishment or condemnation; an instance of this; hardness, harshness, obduracy, † fierceness.
1382. Wyclif, Ezek. xxxiv. 4. Bot with steernesse [1388 sturnenesse] ȝe comaundide to hem, and with power.
c. 1400. Sege Jerus. (E.E.T.S.), 29/517. Noþer grounded in god, ne on his grace tristen, Bot alle in sterymnes [v.r. sternenysse] of stour & in strengþ one.
1483. Cath. Angl., 363/1. Sternesse, pertinacia.
a. 1500. Medulla Gram., Austeritas, steernesse or felnesse.
1540–1. Elyot, Image Gov., 22. That grauitee and sternesse, whiche is in you, as it were by nature ingenerate.
1692. Dryden, Cleomenes, I. i. 7. I have sternness in my Soul enough To hear of Murders, Rapes, and Sacrilege.
1741. Richardson, Pamela, I. 35. She was a little too much frighted, as she owned afterwards, at his Sternness.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Lay of Brown Rosary, I. vi. But his mother was wroth. In a sternness quoth she, ‘As thou play’st at the ball, art thou playing with me?’
1885. Manch. Exam., 26 Jan., 5/3. It is found compatible with the strictest discipline, and indeed with rhadamanthine sternness.
1914. E. Gosse, in Edin. Rev., Oct., 320. Jules Lemaître, a typical Frenchman of the finest breed, bland and gracious, but with a capacity for sternness.
b. quasi-concr., applied to a goddess.
a. 1616. Beaum. & Fl., Bonduca, III. i. Thou sure-steel’d sternnesse, give us this day good hearts, good enemies.
† 2. Rigor, inclemency (of climate). Obs.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), I. 51. And for þe sturnesse of heuene [L. inclementia caeli] he haþ þe more wildernes.
3. Of aspect: Severity, formidableness.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. x. 7. Of stature huge, and eke of courage bold, That sonnes of men amazd their sternnesse to behold.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., IV. iv. 24. How Should I … behold The sternnesse of his presence.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xxxix. Emily was terrified by the sternness of his look.
b. Of scenery, buildings, etc.: Severity; harshness in nature or aspect.
1812. J. Wilson, Isle of Palms, II. 387. The sternness of this dismal Isle Is soften’d by thy saintly smile.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxvii. 197. I … enjoyed for a time the sternness of the surrounding scene.
