[f. prec. + -NESS.] The character or quality of being sociable, in the various senses of the word; sociability.
1592. Moryson, Lett., in Itin. (1617), I. 36. To which custome gentlemen for sociablenes have submitted themselves.
1613. Sir A. Sherley, Trav. Persia, 116. Which will giue an entrance to a kind of sociablenesse, and that will proceed … to a mutuall friendship.
1653. H. More, Antid. Ath., II. iv. § 3. The two main Properties of Man being Contemplation and Sociableness or love of Converse.
1724. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit., I. iii. 25. Abundance of Gentry being in the Neighbourhood, it adds to the Sociableness of the Place.
1727. [see SOCIALNESS].
1825. Cockburn, Mem. (1856), 195. An absolute passion, indulgence in which gratified … his jovial sociableness.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vii. III. 50. But of this sociableness William was entirely destitute.
