[f. LAWFUL + -NESS.] The quality of being lawful; legality; in early use respect for law.
a. 1250. Owl & Night., 1741. Nawt for þire tale, Ah do for mire lahfulnesse.
1530. Palsgr., 237/2. Laufulnesse, licitité, loysibleté.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xlviii. § 7. The lawfulnesse of our prayer for deliuerance out of all [calamities].
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, I. xliii. 69. This great instance or Gods being angry, gives an evident demonstration of the lawfulnesse of anger.
1635–56. Cowley, Davideis, IV. Notes (1669), 149. That is no more a proof of the Right, than their Practice was of the Lawfulness of Idolatry.
1741. Richardson, Pamela, I. 140. Let him, who has Power to command me, look to the Lawfulness of it.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xxi. IV. 566. To question the lawfulness of assassination … was to question the authority of the most illustrious Jesuits.
