[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being treacherous.
1610. Bp. Hall, Apol. Brownists, xxiii. If you could … wash your hands of vnnaturall impietie, and trecherousnesse.
1647. Boyle, Lett. to Hartlib, 8 April, Wks. 1772, I. p. xxxix. The treacherousness of my memory.
1814. Bury & Norwich Post, 26 Oct., 2/3. Catherine [the Great] interrupted the conversation, by asking what was thought at Paris of the death of the late Czar. Diderot, who immediately perceived the treacherousness of the question, stammered some words out about ‘political necessity’—‘reasons of State.’
1865. G. F. Browne, Ice-Caves of France, etc., v. 76. Whether the driver had previously experienced the treacherousness of this slope of ice, or whatever his motive might be, he left me to enter and explore alone.
