[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being stony.
1. lit. The fact of having the character of stone, or being full of stones (or of hard substance like stone).
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, II. liv. 369. Figges…. Their stonines or being without stones.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 38. Arabia Petrea (named so either from the Stoniness thereof or from Petra … the Capital City…).
1789. W. H. Marshall, Glouc., II. 40. Notwithstanding the stoniness of the soil.
b. concr. Stony matter or deposit. rare.
1653. Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr. (ed. 3), 33. Oft-times thou commest immediately unto a little Gravill, or Stoniness.
1760. R. Brown, Compl. Farmer, II. 5. Where anything of small gravel or stonyness is to be found.
2. fig. Hardness, insensibility, unfeelingness.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. xviii. 26. 62. God hardeneth himself … and becometh steely ageinst their stonnynesse.
1626. J. Cotton, in Ussher’s Lett. (1686), 339. Before the Heart be changed from Stoniness to Brokenness.
1854. T. T. Lynch, Lett. to Scattered, etc. (1872), 383. The stoniness of his own heart may remain.
