Also 7 wand-. [f. WAN a. + -NESS.] The state or condition of being wan; † lividity (obs.); a pale, dead or sickly color (of the face), pallidness.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. iv. 23. I slowe a man into my wound, and a litle waxen man into my wannesse [Vulg. in livorem meum].
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VII. liv. (1495), 268. Wyth to grete holdynge of emeroides comyth … palenesse of face and wannesse and heuynesse of loynes.
1530. Palsgr., 286/2. Wannes of colour, indeur.
1611. Cotgr., Blaimeur palenesse, wannesse, bleakenesse; a dead, or whitish colour. Ibid., Lividité, liuiditie, lewnesse, wannesse,… blewishnesse; the colour appearing vpon a stroake, blacke and blew.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 40. The heat of the heart being drawne inward, there appeareth a pale wannesse in the face.
1643. A. Tuckney, Balm of Gilead, 22. The wannesse of his dead look upon the Crosse.
1653. R. Sanders, Physiogn., 180. A pale wandness in the face, as in the Flegmatique.
1771. Mrs. Griffith, Hist. Lady Barton, III. 275. My wanness was the effect of ill health.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xliii. In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate face.
1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, III. iii. 108. There was a faded look about her complexion, too,… a wanness, a yellowness.
