[f. FLORID a. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being florid; exuberant freshness or liveliness, brightness of ruddy hue; lavishness of ornamentation.
1661. Feltham, Resolves, II. lxx. 337. Some of the Ancient Grecians should so much extol it [dancing], deriving it not only from the Amœnity and Floridness of the warm and spirited bloud; but, deducing it from heaven it self.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva (1776), 631. The Longobards, who not being capable of philosophising on the physical causes, which they deemed supernatural, and plainly divine, were allured, as it is likely, by the gloominess of the shade, procerity and altitude of the stem, floridness of the leaves, and other accidents.
1769. Wesley, Jrnl., 2 July. Her language is clear, strong, and simple, without any of that affected floridness which offends all who have a tolerable ear, or any judgment in good writing.
1776. Priestley, in Phil. Trans., LXVI. 231. The floridness of the arterial blood above the venal may, in a good measure, be owing to the strong agitation, friction, and communication, which it undergoes in passing through them [the lungs].
1830. Fraser’s Mag., I. Feb., 8. Refinement always weakens the natural vigour of the brain, and tames down the floridness and the salient humours of the imagination. Ibid. (1842), XXVI. Dec., 639. A clustering floridness sometimes conceals a flaw in the pillars.
1889. Bruce, Plant. Negro, x. 153. The man of ripe years has all the mental floridness of a boy whose faculties have not yet reached that stage of development when the imagination is submissive to the judgment, simply because the judgment, as yet, is lacking.
