Also 6–7, 9 viciosity (6 -itie, -itee), 7 visiositie. [ad. L. vitiōsitās, f. vitiōsus: see next and -ITY. So OF. viciosité (vicieusité, -eté), It. viziosità.]
† 1. A defect or fault; an imperfection. Obs.
1538. Elyot, Dict., Addit., Cacia, viciositie, or that whiche we commonly do calle, a faute in a thynge.
1563. Abp. Parker, Corr. (Parker Soc.), 199. With my natural viciosity of overmuch shamefastness I am so babished … that [etc.].
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (Arb.), 167. It may come to passe that what the Grammarian setteth downe for a viciositee in speach may become a vertue and no vice.
1665. Jer. Taylor, Unum Necess., vi. § 16. Any person that hath a fault or a legal impurity, a debt, a vitiosity, defect, or imperfection.
2. The state or character of being morally vicious.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 247. Reason by little and little doth illuminate, purge and cleanse the soule in abating and diminishing evermore the visiositie thereof.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., I. § 42. My untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity makes mee dayly doe worse.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iii. Contents 104. It is not only moral vitiosity which inclines men to atheize.
1782. J. Brown, Compend. View Nat. & Rev. Relig., I. 13. An inconceivable vitiosity of nature absolutely inconsistent with godhead.
1836. Gilbert, Chr. Atonem., Notes (1852), 380. The vitiosity of sin and public injury are here correlative.
† b. An instance of this; a vice. Obs.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., II. § 7. There are certaine tempers of body, which … doe hatch and produce viciosities, whose … monstrosity of nature admits no name.
1657. Gaule, Sap. Just., 9. That, after Baptism, it is no real viciosity, but only a penalty.
† 3. The quality of being physically impaired or defective. Obs.
1647. A. Ross, Mystag. Poet., i. (1672), 9. In this Gum [sc. myrrh] Venus is much delighted, as being a help to … the vitiosity of the Matrix.
1651. N. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 223. If the more waterish and yellow bloud doth denote its vitiosity.
4. Sc. Law. The quality of being faulty or improper in a legal aspect.
1765–8. Erskine, Inst. Law Scot., III. ix. § 52. Such confirmation … purges the vitiosity of his former intromissions.
1838. W. Bell, Dict. Law Scot., 529. It infers an intention on the part of the intromitter to account for his intromissions, which takes off the vitiosity, and renders him liable only to the extent of his intromissions.
