Obs. (exc. humorous). Also 6 selcitud, 7 celc-, celsitud. [a. F. celsitude, ad. L. celsitūdo lofty carriage, also in late L. a title of honor, f. celsus lofty.]
1. Lofty position, high rank; dignity, eminence.
c. 1450. Crt. of Love, lxxxviii. Honour to thee … Goddess of love, and to thy celsitude.
1500–20. Dunbar, Gladethe thone Queyne, 7. Joy be and grace onto thi Selcitud!
1563. Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 16/2. This celsitude and regalitie of the pope.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xxii. § 15. See what Celsitud of honor Plinius secundus attributeth to Traiane.
1680. trans. Buchanan’s De Jure Regni (1689), 63. It doth over-shadow them all with the Top of its Celsitude.
b. As a title or form of address; = HIGHNESS.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., I. 177. I beseik, he said, thi celsitude, Exerce thi strenth.
1685. F. Spence, House of Medici, 265. His Celsitude gave him Men to Conduct and Guard him to and from such places.
2. Loftiness, exaltation; exalted character.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1684), II. 294. Whose … celsitude of mind no man may sufficiently express.
1607. Schol. Disc. agst. Antichr., I. iv. 185. Such a celsitude of spirit.
a. 1761. W. Law, Behmen’s Wks. (1765), 14. Sensibility, Finding, and Celsitude.
3. Height, tallness. (Now humorous.)
1678. Phillips, Celsitude, tallness, heighth.
1721–1800. Bailey, Celsitude, Highness, Height, Talness.
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, ch. i. Peter Peebles, in his usual plenitude of wig and celsitude of hat.
