[f. LORDLY a. + -NESS.]
† 1. The condition or state of a lord. Obs.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 384. Clerkis & religious folke that louen unkyndely þes lordlynes willen glose here & say þat [etc.].
c. 1400. trans. Secreta Secret., Gov. Lordsh., 42. Techinge falland to lordlynes of lordes.
1549. Cheke, Hurt Sedit. (1641), 10. By ambition yee seek Lordlinesse, much unfit for you.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., I. 150/1. To ferret out concealed lands for the supporte of their owne priuat lordlines.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., V. ii. 161. Doing the Honour of thy Lordlinesse To one so meeke.
1641. ‘Smectymnuus,’ Answ., xviii. (1653), 77. Men would be adding to Gods institution, what … Lordlinesse their phansie suggested unto them.
1669. Woodhead, St. Teresa, I. xxxiii. 236. The Lords, we are wont to meet within this world,… place all their Lordliness in some acted Authorities.
2. The disposition proper to a lord; dignity, grandeur. Frequent in bad sense: Arrogance, haughtiness, imperiousness.
1549. Coverdale, etc., Erasm. Par. Titus, 28. He must overcome more by … gentylnes, than by lordelynes.
a. 1585. Cartwright, in R. Browne, Answ. Cartwright, 93. Pharisaicall pride and Lordlinesse in teaching.
1618. Bolton, Florus, I. viii. (1636), 21. The intolerable Lordlinesse or Superbus did some good.
1670. G. H., Hist. Cardinals, I. I. 14. From hence it is the Grandeur and Lordlyness of the Cardinals does spring.
1723. Dk. Wharton, True Briton, No. 42. II. 365. The Arbitrary Temper and Lordliness of Calvin.
1741. Richardson, Pamela (1824), I. 117. See the lordliness of a high condition!
1883. J. Parker, Tyne Chylde, 200. There are instincts of lordliness in man which are to be accounted for.
1884. Church, Bacon, ix. 225. The Latin in which [the Novum Organum] is written … has … the lordliness of a great piece of philosophical legislation.
