[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The condition or quality of being venomous; † venomous matter.
c. 1530. Judic. Urines, II. xiv. 45 b. Through excesse and vyolence of hete and of venymousnes and malyce of the sekenesse.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. lv. 21. They wounded him with their privie venemousnes.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 38/2. The parte is onlye soacked throughe with some certayne venoumousenes. Ibid. (1599), trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 132/2. When the people doe suddaynly dye of this disease, it is then to be feared ther was any venoumousnes annexed thervnto.
1611. Cotgr., Virulence,… poison, venomousnesse.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), Venomousness, poisonous Nature or Quality.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., Viper,… a kind of Serpent, famed … for the exceeding Venomousness of its Bite.
1775. in Ash; and in later Dicts.
