Forms: 4–5 vnctuosite, 6 -yte, 6–7 -itie, 7 -ity; 6 vnctuositee, 7 unctuositie, -ocity, 7– unctuosity. [a. OF. unctuosite (F. onctuosité), or ad. med.L. unctuōsitas, f. unctuōs-us UNCTUOUS: see -ITY. Cf. It. untuosità, untosità, Sp. untuosidad, Pg. unctuosidade.]
1. Unctuousness; oiliness, greasiness.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. xxxiii. (Bodl. MS.). For vnctuosite leide to þe tunge openeþ swiþe & dissolueþ, & sotel substaunce entreþ ful swiþe.
c. 1400. trans. Secreta Secret., Gov. Lordsh., 98. Swetnesse, bitternesse, saltnesse, & vnctuosite.
1539. Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), 37. Whay,… by the vnctuositee of the butter,… is both moist and norishing.
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, xiii. E j. The vnctuosyte of it doth … augmente the heate of the lyuer.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 558. A certaine unctuositie or fattinesse it carrieth with it.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, xix. § 8. 173. They haue a high degree of aqueous humidity ioyned with their vnctuosity.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 102. The more nitrous and fossile the Salts are, the more Unctuosity they have.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, II. 58. The gentlemen who talk of … unctuosity in sea water.
1805. Saunders, Min. Waters, 487. Inhabitants of hot climates, protected by the greater unctuosity of their skin,… are enabled to lead an almost amphibious life.
1873. Beeton’s Dict. Comm., Musk,… comes to us dry, with a kind of unctuosity.
2. fig. Unctuous religiosity or complacency.
1884. Tennyson, Becket, III. iii. From whence there puffed out such an incense of unctuosity into the nostrils of our Gods of Church and State.
1885. Spectator, 22 Aug., 1114/1. The author’s style,… its well-known grace, and its at least equally well-known unctuosity.
