hearsomeness

English

Etymology

From Middle English hersumnesse, from Old English hīersumnes (“obedience, submission, service, humility”), equivalent to hearsome +‎ -ness.

Noun

hearsomeness (uncountable)

  1. (nonce word) Obedience; submission to authority.
    • 1939, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake:
      Thus the hearsomeness of the burger felicitates the whole of the polis.
    • 1993, John Bishop, Joyce's Book of the Dark:
      […] his awakened "hearsomeness" causing him to misconstrue the sound, along Aristotelean lines, as the sound of thunder.
    • 1996, Christine Froula, Modernism's body:
      The cultural "bonum" that arrives by her Grace, issuing from the "malo" (apple/evil) of this "foenix culprit," consists in her streaming urine/words, which the Jarl's felicitous "hearsomeness" — his passion to keep her within his hearing and heir-ing […]
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.