a. Having a stony heart; cruel, unfeeling, merciless.
1569. Underdowne, Heliodorus, VII. 93. There is no man so stoany harted, but he shal be made to yeelde with our flatteringe allurmentes.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. ii. 28. The stony-hearted Villaines.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1638), 44. For who was so stony hearted; whom his sweet words and abundant teares … might not haue moued.
1822. De Quincey, Opium Eater, I. (1903), 183. So then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted stepmother,… at length I was dismissed from thee!
a. 1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xv. 150. His coarse and stony-hearted brethren at the bar.
Hence Stony-heartedness.
1673. Hickeringill, Greg. F. Greybeand, 258. They are so rooted in pride, stony heartedness and opinion of themselves.
1888. Voice (N. Y.), 19 Jan., 5/4. Mayor Chapin of Brooklyn refuses to perform the marriage ceremony…. His stony-heartedness will blight the joy of many an intending Brooklyn couple.
