[f. BALD a. + -NESS.]
1. Absence or loss of hair, esp. from the head.
1382. Wyclif, Deut. xiv. 1. Ȝe shulen not kut, ne make ballidnes [1388 ballidnesse, 1535 Coverd. baldnesse.]
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VI. xxi. Ȝif mete is to skarse, it … bredeþ ffallynge of heer and ballidnesse.
a. 1448. note to R. Glouc. 482. The harme of ballednesse.
1608. Topsell, Serpents, 674. The thinnesse, smoothnesse, and baldnesse, of the skin [of Chameleons].
1705. Swift, Salamand. And there corrupting to a wound, Spreads leprosy and baldness round.
1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, xlv. (1884), 443. Baldness is busy with his crown.
fig. 1382. Wyclif, Jer. xlvii. 5. Ther cam ballidnesse vp on Gasam.
1788. Burke, Sp. W. Hastings, Wks. XIII. 221. Conquest may cover its baldness with its own laurels.
2. transf. Lack of natural covering; e.g., the bareness of an unwooded country.
1863. Baring-Gould, Iceland, 103. The baldness of the land … made it impossible to get under cover.
3. fig. Meager simplicity or poverty of style; lack of ornament; bareness, nakedness.
1774. Warton, Eng. Poetry (1840), III. xli. 5. Borde has all the baldness of allusion and barbarity of versification belonging to Skelton.
1844. Stanley, Arnold, I. iv. 186. From the baldness of his earlier works to the vigorous English of his mature age.
1878. P. Bayne, Purit. Rev., iii. 87. The harshness and baldness of Puritan worship.
