[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being fiery.

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  † 1.  The attribute of containing the element fire; igneous nature. Obs.

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1680.  H. More, Apocal. Apoc., 74. This City being taken by Alaricus as if a burning Mountain had been cast into the Sea, the earthiness and fieriness thereof being so contrary and mischievous to water.

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  2.  The condition of being hot as fire, or of glowing like fire.

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1611.  Cotgr., Ignition … firinesse; the being red-hot.

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1698.  J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 104. All the time of our durance here Water is sprinkled, to mitigate the Fieriness of the Sun.

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  † b.  Inflammation; fieriness of the face = ERYSIPELAS. Obs.

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1616.  Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 206. The water distilled of the flowers, quencheth the firinesse of the face.

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1658.  A. Fox, trans. Wurtz’ Surg., II. xxiii. 139. When all the fieriness and burning is gone, Phlebotomy will be of good use in such places, as the Wound will permit.

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  c.  Of a liquid or viand: see FIERY 4 c.

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1698.  J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 157. Their Relishing Bits have not the Fieriness of ours, yet all the pleasure you can desire.

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1837.  Whittock, Bk. Trades (1842), 393. Flavour, mellowness and a due strength without fieriness, comprised all that need be desired to produce a British Brandy.

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  3.  Ardour of temper; tendency to ‘fire up.’

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1625–8.  Camden’s Hist. Eliz., IV. (1688), 568. The Fieriness and Heat of his Youth would be his Undoing; and that there is no more easie way to overthrow a man grown popular, then by thrusting him forward upon a Business which he is unable and unfit for.

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1704.  Addison, Italy (1733), 37. The Italians, notwithstanding their Natural Fieriness of Temper, affect always to appear sober and sedate; insomuch that one sometimes meets Young Men walking the Streets with Spectacles on their Noses, that they may be thought to have impaired their Sight by much Study, and seem more Grave and Judicious than their Neighbours.

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1842.  Dickens, Lett. (ed. 2), I. 76. Katey (from a lurking propensity to fiery-ness) [is named] Lucifer Box.

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