[f. CHILL a. + -NESS.] Chill quality or condition.
1. Unpleasant coldness, chilling quality.
1598. Florio, Gelidezza, coldnesse, chilnesse, freasing, frost.
1607. Walkington, Opt. Glass, 15. The exceeding chilnes of the aire.
1784. Johnson, Lett., 21 April. Not caring to venture the chillness of the evening.
1868. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1879), II. 41. After so much stormy chillness.
2. The sensation of cold; the state of being unpleasantly cold and shivering.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 294/1. If it [the plague] take him with … chillness … cover him well that he may sweate.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 793. There followeth a chilness or Shivering in all the Body.
1745. De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman (1841), I. vii. 47. He cannot think of it but as we do of the grave, with a chillness in the blood and a tremour in the spirits.
1789. W. Buchan, Dom. Med. (1790), 639. When cold bathing occasions chilness … it ought to be discontinued.
1823. Scott, Peveril, xxxv. The chillness of his ankles.
3. fig. Absence of warmth of temperament, feeling or manner; want of zeal or interest.
1638. O. Sedgwicke, Serm. (1639), 93. Why that remissenesse and chillnesse to encourage and inlarge the exercise of Armes?
1701. Whitehead, Truth Prevalent, 59. Under such Chilness of Zeal.
1754. Johnson, Life Cave, Wks. IV. 529. The same chilness of mind was observable in his conversation.
1846. Hawthorne, Mosses, II. iii. (1864), 68. The chillness of his moral atmosphere.
