[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being coarse; roughness, rudeness, want of fineness or refinement, etc.: see the adj.
1541. Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 18. The coursnes of the woll.
1586. W. Webbe, Eng. Poetrie (Arb.), 53. The coursenes of our speeche.
1662. Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 281. Writing truly and orderly, only guilty of coarseness of style.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 118. There appears … a coarseness and vulgarity in all the proceedings of the assembly.
1823. Lamb, Elia (1860), 206. Her voice had lately acquired a coarseness.
1840. Lardner, Geom., 143. The coarseness or fineness of the canvass.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 235. A Rome which had lost its simplicity and retained its coarseness.
