[f. prec. + -NESS.]
1. The quality of being expensive or costly, or of requiring large outlay; costliness.
1655. Fuller, Hist. Camb. (1840), 224. Considering the expensiveness of the place [Cambridge].
1656. Prynne, Rights Eng. Freemen, 21. The expensivenesse … of their Law sutes.
1705. Arbuthnot, Coins, viii. (1727), 75. Their Highways, for their extent, solidity or expensiveness, are some of the greatest monuments of the grandeur of their Empire.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., I. x. That … celebrity which makes an artist great to the most ordinary people by their knowledge of his great expensiveness.
1882. J. R. Seeley, in Macm. Mag., XLVI. 457/2. The expensiveness of the wars.
2. Disposition to lavish expenditure, extravagance. Now rare.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., I. xiv. 45. Ulrick Fugger … was disinherited of a great patrimony onely for his studiousnesse, and expensivenesse in buying costly Manuscripts.
1796. Jane Austen, Sense & Sens. (1811), III. xi. 226. His expensiveness is acknowledged even by himself.
1819. L. Hunt, Indicator, No. 1 (1822), I. 7. An improved knowledge which does not confound good taste with expensiveness.
