vitiosity
(vɪʃɪˈɒsɪtɪ)
Also 6–7, 9 viciosity (6 -itie, -itee), 7 visiositie.
[ad. L. vitiōsitās, f. vitiōsus: see next and -ity. So OF. viciosité (vicieusité, -eté), It. viziosità.]
† 1. A defect or fault; an imperfection. Obs.
| 1538 Elyot Dict. Addit., Cacia, viciositie, or that whiche we commonly do calle, a faute in a thynge. 1563 Abp. Parker Corr. (Parker Soc.) 199 With my natural viciosity of overmuch shamefastness I am so babished..that [etc.]. 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie (Arb.) 167 It may come to passe that what the Grammarian setteth downe for a viciositee in speach may become a vertue and no vice. 1665 Jer. Taylor Unum Necess. vi. §16 Any person that hath a fault or a legal impurity, a debt, a vitiosity, defect, or imperfection. |
2. The state or character of being morally vicious.
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 247 Reason by little and little doth illuminate, purge and cleanse the soule in abating and diminishing evermore the visiositie thereof. 1643 Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. i. §42 My untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity makes mee dayly doe worse. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iii. Contents 104 It is not only moral vitiosity which inclines men to atheize. 1782 J. Brown Compend. View Nat. & Rev. Relig. I. 13 An inconceivable vitiosity of nature absolutely inconsistent with godhead. 1836 Gilbert Chr. Atonem. Notes (1852) 380 The vitiosity of sin and public injury are here correlative. |
† b. An instance of this; a vice. Obs.
| 1643 Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. ii. §7 There are certaine tempers of body, which..doe hatch and produce viciosities, whose..monstrosity of nature admits no name. 1657 Gaule Sap. Just. 9 That, after Baptism, it is no real viciosity, but only a penalty. |
† 3. The quality of being physically impaired or defective. Obs.
| 1647 A. Ross Mystag. Poet. i. (1672) 9 In this Gum [sc. myrrh] Venus is much delighted, as being a help to..the vitiosity of the Matrix. 1651 N. Biggs New Disp. ¶223 If the more waterish and yellow bloud doth denote its vitiosity. |
4. Sc. Law. The quality of being faulty or improper in a legal aspect.
| 1765–8 Erskine Inst. Law Scot. iii. ix. §52 Such confirmation..purges the vitiosity of his former intromissions. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 529 It infers an intention on the part of the intromitter to account for his intromissions, which takes off the vitiosity, and renders him liable only to the extent of his intromissions. |