[f. prec. + -NESS.] The quality or fact of being accountable or liable to give account and answer for conduct; responsibility, amenableness (to a person, for a thing).
1668. Honyman, Surv. Naphtali (1669), II. 64. Subordination to the Prince, as to direction, accountableness, or censurableness.
1680. Mather, Irenicum, 11. The lawfulness and usefulness of Synods in the Church of God, and the accountableness of particular Congregations thereunto.
1788. Reid, Active Powers, IV. vii. 622. His accountableness has the same extent and the same limitations.
1858. De Quincey, Whiggism, Wks. VI. 65. The same disdain of accountableness to his party leaders.
1868. Miss Braddon, Dead Sea Fr. (Tauchn.), II. xiv. 198. The … ideas of man’s accountableness for the soul of his weaker partner.
