This also is of English origin.
1768. Who could have thought so innocent a face could cover so much cuteness?—Goldsmith, ‘Good-natured Man.’ (N.E.D.)
1807–8. The rhymes are generally borrowed from the Doctor’s own works, possessing all that quaintness, cuteness and clumsiness, for which he is remarkable.—W. Irving, ‘Salmagundi’ (1860), iv. 88. (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1855. I move that you bring him back to lecture on the cuteness there is in leaving a Northern church, going South, &c.—Speech of Dr. Ross of Tennessee in the “New School” General Assembly at Buffalo, N.Y.
