Forms: see YELLOW a. [f. as prec. + -NESS.]
1. The quality or state of being yellow; yellow color.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. vi. (Bodl. MS.). Aristotel seith ȝelownes of yȝen is meuynge of feblenes.
a. 1400. Chaucer, Purse, 11. That I … may … see your colour lyke the sonne bryght That of yelownesse hadde neuere pere.
c. 1460. Promp Parv., 548. Ȝelhewnesse, glavcedo.
c. 1475. Partenay, 3687. Adieu, my lady, with heres yowlownesse!
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, IV. Wks. 1724, II. 139. A dark yellowness dying his Skin.
1663. Dryden, Rival Ladies, III. i. Like the Sun (ev’n while Eclips’d) she casts A Yellowness upon all other faces.
1765. Delaval, in Phil. Trans., LV. 17, note m. The Hyacinth is a stone … which is red with a certain yellowness.
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, viii. Doctors will tell you that the drinking of milk gives yellowness to the complexion.
1889. Chamb. Jrnl., 30 Nov., 760/1. There is a solidity and yellowness about Jupiter’s light which catch the eye at once, and irresistibly suggest that he is hot even to incandescence.
† 2. fig. Jealousy: see YELLOW a. 2. Obs.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., I. iii. 111. I will incense Ford to deale with poyson: I will possesse him with yallownesse.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. iii. I. ii. (1651), 606. The undiscreet carriage of some … gallant … may … if he be inclined to yellowness, colour him quite.
