[f. TIMELY a. + -NESS.] The quality of being timely. † a. Early development or maturity. Obs. rare. b. Seasonableness, suitableness to the time.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 81. Difficulties … kindle … the generous spirits, and adde that to their diligence which was wanting in their timelinesse.
1612–3. C. Brooke, Elegy, Poems (1872), 180. His timelinesse did so preuent his date, That ere the floure was look’t for came the fruit.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, iii. (1861), 53. The art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot.
1868. Ruskin, Arrows of Chace (1880), II. 195. All measures of reformation are elective in exact proportion to their timeliness.
