[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being lasting; continuance, duration, permanence. Also, durability, † constancy, perseverance.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter ii. 7. Þe lastandnes of god euermare is all at ans.
c. 1440. Jacob’s Well, 289. Lastyngnes fayleth noȝt in wele ne wo tyl þe lyues ende.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, VIII. 1319. Pees is in hewyn, with blyss and lestandnas.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, I. (1590), 8. The consideration of the exceeding lastingnesse.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), II. 36. Though the heart be the box of love, the memory is the box of lastingnes.
1670. Clarendon, Contempl. Ps., in Tracts (1727), 621. The lastingness of anything adds very much to the esteem of it.
1704. Newton, Optics, III. i. (1721), 322. The lastingness of the Motions excited in the bottom of the Eye by Light.
1715. Leoni, Palladio’s Archit. (1742), I. 10. The solidity and lastingness of the Work.
1820. Examiner, No. 650. 609/1. It was all over with them, as to any real tenure of empire, any lastingness of dictation.
1851. Caroline Fox, Jrnl. (1882), II. 160. The lastingness of an individual conviction is with him a pledge of its truth.
1885. Pater, Marius, II. 19. Anxious to try the lastingness of his own Epicurean rose-garden.
