[f. BARE a. + -NESS.]

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  1.  Nakedness, lack of covering.

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1552.  Huloet, Barenes, nuditas.

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c. 1600.  Shaks., Sonn., v. Beauty ore-snow’d and barenes euery where.

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1810.  Coleridge, Friend (1865), 26. A clothing even of withered leaves is better than bareness.

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  2.  Destitution, scantiness; baldness. lit. and fig.

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1580.  Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Pouvreté … barenesse, want.

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1590.  Pasquil’s Apol., I. B iiij b. Compare the exposition … with the barenesse of reading.

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1666.  South, 12 Serm. (1697), I. 229. Stript of … its Privileges, and made like the primitive Church for its Bareness.

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1870.  Emerson, Soc. & Solit., i. 14. A man must be clothed with society, or we shall feel a certain bareness or poverty.

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  † b.  Leanness. Obs.

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1552.  Huloet, Barenes or leannes of the bodye, macies.

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1596.  Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., IV. ii. 77. For their barenesse … they neuer learn’d that of me.

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  † 3.  Mere or simple quality; mereness. Obs.

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1607.  Dekker, Northw. Hoe, II. Wks. III. 25. My father could take vp, vpon the barenesse of his word fiue hundred pound.

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