[ad. L. flagrantia: see prec. and -ANCY.]
1. lit. The quality of being flagrant; glowing or blazing condition. Obs. or arch.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 722. Lust causeth a Flagrancie in the Eyes; and Priapisme.
1822. T. Taylor, Apuleius, 300. So many various stars are beheld supernally in ether, i. e. in the most clear flagrancy of fire.
b. fig.
1599. E. Sandys, Europæ Speculum (1632), 240. They will assemble divers of theyr fairest Courtizans, (as I haue heard it there reported,) to draw the modest beautie of a Virgin out of the flagrancie of Harlots.
1650. Trapp, Clavis to Bible, III. 56. So they dyed in the flagrancy of their lust; as did likewise one of the Popes, taken in the act, and slain together with his harlot, by the husband of the adulteress.
2. Of an offence, crime, evil, etc.: Heinousness, enormity, outrageousness.
1714. Steele, Apol., Pref., Polit. Writ. (1715), 215. The Flagrancy and dangerous Consequence of what was doing, was hidden by the inconsiderableness of the agents.
1760. Derrick, Lett. (1767), I. 64. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged; a punishment which he afterwards suffered, but which was greatly inadequate to the flagrancy of his crime.
a. 1797. H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. III. (1845), I. x. 221. As the accounts from America grew every day worse, the Ministers, who at first inclined to repeal the Act, were borne down by the flagrancy of the provocation.
1810. Bentham, The Elements of the Art of Packing (1821), 245. To do what can be done by so weak an instrument of communication at the present, towards holding up to view the flagrancy of the disease.
