[f. FICKLE a. + -NESS.] The quality or state of being fickle.

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  † 1.  Falseness, deceit, treachery. Obs. rare.

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c. 1397.  Chaucer, Lack Stedf., 20.

        From Right to wronge from trowght to fekylnesse
Þat all is lost ffor lac of Stedfastnesse.

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  2.  Changeableness, inconstancy, variableness.

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1548.  Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Luke iv. 43. This iourneiyng from place to place was not the disease of ficlenesse or of vnstablenesse.

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1665.  Boyle, Occas. Refl. (1845), 291. Some thoughts of the Mutability and Fickleness of Prosperity, and how easily, as well as quickly, we may be depriv’d of that we cannot easily part with.

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1716.  Addison, The Free-Holder, No. 25, 16 March, ¶ 1. There is no Nation in Europe so much given to change as the English. There are Some who ascribe this to the Fickleness of our Climate.

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1828.  Scott, F. M. Perth, xxv. It could not be levity or fickleness of character which induced his daughter to act with so much apparent inconsistency.

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1875.  Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. lxxxix. 2. All things savour of the changes of the moon and the fickleness of the sea.

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