[ad. L. vastitūdo, f. vastus VAST a.]
† 1. Devastation; laying waste. Obs.–1
1545. Joye, Exp. Dan. ix. 162. And aftir the bataill their shalbe an vtter perpetuall vastitude and destruccion of them.
2. The quality of being vast; immensity.
1623. Cockeram, I. Vastitude, greatness, exceeding largenesse.
1790. H. Boyd, Ruins Athens, in Poet. Reg. (1806–7), 75.
| The woodland orator,… | |
| Mute and benumb’d, a theatre surveys | |
| Whose vastitude appalls him. |
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Passion & Princ., i. The vastitude of the multifarious objects by which she … is environed.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Crowned & Buried, vii.
| Napoleon!—even the torrid vastitude | |
| Of India felt in throbbings of the air | |
| That name which scattered by disastrous blare | |
| All Europe’s bound-lines. |
b. Of immaterial things.
1805. Foster, Ess., I. iv. You adopted a certain vastitude of phrase, mistaking extravagance of expression for greatness of thought.
1833. New Monthly Mag., XXXIX. 181. The Abbey performances gave this country a character no other has ever yet achieved for vastitude, precision, and excellence in the grander demonstrations of music.
1884. Congregational Year Bk., 55. They could not see … the measure or the issues of their mission—or, perhaps, its very vastitude had paralysed their energies.
c. Unusual largeness.
1876. Browning, Shop, 12. He who owns the wealth Which blocks the window’s vastitude.
1886. Dowden, Shelley, II. 210. If the vastitude of Mr. Gisborne’s nose was, as Shelley says, Slawkenbergian.
3. A vast extent or space.
1841. Hor. Smith, Moneyed Man, I. vi. 163. Sending up … spires, domes, and cupolas from a superincumbent vastitude of smoke.
1854. S. Neil, Elem. Rhet., 71. Onward through the immense vastitudes which the Almighty hand has sprinkled with suns and world-systems.
1883. Liverpool Courier, 25 Sept., 4/5. The enormous astral vastitudes were seen to be broken by the domain of another tenant.
