[-NESS.]
1. The state of being waste.
† a. Desolation, destruction, ruin. lit. and fig. (Chiefly Biblical.) Obs.
1382. Wyclif, Isa. xlvii. 11. Ther shal feerli falle vp on thee wastnesse [Vulg. calamitas]. Ibid., Hos. ix. 6. Thei ben gon fro wastnesse [Vulg. a vastitate].
1535. Coverdale, Isa. xxiv. 12. Desolacion shal remayne in the cities, and the gates shalbe smytten with waistnesse.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., IV. xii. 74 b. We do now se at hande certaine beginninges of a horrible wastenesse in the Chirch.
1598. Spenser, Wks. (1882), I. 538. Out of the ashes of disolacon and wastnes of this your wretched Realme of Ireland.
1611. Bible, Zeph. i. 15. A day of wastenesse and desolation.
a. 1672. Sterry, Freed. Will (1675), 144. A dark, horrid, and bottomless pit, where all wastness, woe, disorder, deformity … dwell together.
1863. J. G. Murphy, Comm. Lev. iv. Introd. Trespass is the moral wasteness.
b. The state of lying waste, being wild or uncultivated or barren.
1608. in Buccleuch MSS. Whitehall (Hist. MSS. Comm.), I. 76. The present wastenes of that country proveth both the facility and the necessity of the plantation.
1799. S. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 245. Wasteness admits of various degrees. Some land in a state of nature may be worth ten or even fifteen shillings an acre of yearly rent; while other land is not worth so many farthings.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xxviii. Under her rays, the ground over which we passed assumed a more interesting appearance than during the broad daylight, which discovered the extent of its wasteness.
1863. J. G. Murphy, Comm. Gen. i. 14. The wasteness of the land … has begun to be adorned with the living forms of a new vegetation.
2. An uninhabited or unfrequented region or place. Obs. or dial.
a. 1500. Hist. K. Boccus & Sydracke (? 1510), U iv. He shuld fynde wastenes ful great There nethere were drynke ne mete But wylde beastes many one.
1572. Buchanan, Detect. Mary Q. Scottis (1727), 68. Was not that desolate Waistnes [orig. L. illa deserta vastitas], that unhantit Place, abill of itself to put simpill Men in Feir?
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. iii. 3. She of nought affrayd, Through woods and wastnesse wide him daily sought.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, IV. iii. The drearie trumpet blew a dreadfull blast,… Through wastnes wide it roard, and hollowes vast.
1647. Cressy, Exomologesis, 17. Which is able to convert Paradice it selfe into a savage wastnesse.
1876. Mid-Yorksh. Gloss., Wasteness, a waste place.
