[f. LAWLESS + -NESS.] The quality of being lawless; disregard of, or disobedience to, law or rule.
1591. Spenser, M. Hubberd, 1310. Gluttonie, malice, pride, and covetize, And lawlesnes raigning with riotize.
1611. Cotgr., Illegalité,… lawlesnesse.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xviii. IV. 200. A frightful instance of the lawlessness and ferocity of those marauders.
1860. J. F. Thrupp, Introd. to Ps., II. 69. Unholiness and lawlessness of life.
1871. Morley, Carlyle, in Crit. Misc., Ser. I. 215. Byron, whose genius, daring, and melodramatic lawlessness, exercised what now seems such an amazing fascination over the least revolutionary of European nations.
