[f. TAME a. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being tame, in any sense; e.g., domesticated condition, absence of wildness; lack of spirit or courage; absence of animation or variety; commonplace quality.
1530. Palsgr., 279/1. Tamenesse, priueur.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., II. viii. 41 b. These Partriges … become wild, forgetting their tamenes.
a. 1633. Austin, Medit. (1635), 152. So that they lose not their fervour in Tamenesse, nor in preposterous zeale forget their Gentlenesse.
1655. Nicholas Papers (Camden), II. 177. Iff our dull countrymen will not fly to theire swords, they will suffer the deserved punishment of theire tameness.
1759. Johnson, Idler, No. 47, ¶ 12. He laughs at the letters … for their tameness of expression.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), II. 310. The difference between animals in a state of nature and domestic tameness is so considerable, that [etc.].
1781. Cowper, Alex. Selkirk, ii. They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness is shocking to me.
1851. Beck’s Florist, 195. The monotony and tameness of a villa-garden.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xix. IV. 370. This tameness was merely the tameness with which a tiger, caught, caged, and starved, submits to the keeper who brings him food.
