grimness
(ˈgrɪmnɪs)
[f. grim a. + -ness.]
The quality or condition of being grim; fierceness; sternness; formidable aspect.
| 971 Blickl. Hom. 55 He [the devil] wile hit him mid grimnesse & mid yfele eall forᵹyldan. a 1000 Guthlac 550 (Gr.) Cwædon cearfulle Criste laðe to Guðlace mid grimnysse. c 1050 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 341/8 Atrocitas, grimnes. c 1386 Chaucer Pars. T. ¶790 (Ellesm. MS.) They shul han..sharpe hunger and thurst and grymnesse [v.r. grislines, grymlynesse] of deueles. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 212/2 Grymnesse, or horrybylnesse. 1563 Golding Cæsar i. (1565) 29 b, They were not able to abyde the grymnesse of their countenaunces. 1619 Bp. J. King Thanksgiv. Serm. 26 The grimness of her visage disguised, yet will it be fearefull enough. 1670 Milton Hist. Eng. ii. Wks. (1851) 60 That in the grimness of Death they might seem to eat their own flesh. 1787 Glover Athenaid xxx. 284 Whose ravell'd brow, and countenance of gloom, Present a lion's grimness. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. I. iv. iv, A sardonic grimness lies in that irreverend Reverence of Autun. |