[f. SUPERFLUOUS, + -NESS.] Superfluity.

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a. 1540.  Barnes, Wks. (1573), 211/1. All onely I spake against the superfluousnes, and the abuse of them [sc. possessions].

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1561.  T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., II. 301. This semeth a weake superfluousnes of wordes.

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1567.  Maplet, Gr. Forest, 39. Crowtoe … being drunken … with Wine purgeth the Gall of his superfluousnesse.

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1600.  Surflet, Countrie Farme, VI. xxii. 795. Such wines doe not load the bodie with superfluousnes of serous excrements.

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1897.  Current Hist. (Buffalo, U.S.), VII. 380. The superfluousness of royal state.

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1899.  ‘A. Hope,’ King’s Mirror, xviii. 192. William Adolphus wandered about in a state of conscious and wretched superfluousness.

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