manfulness
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English manfulnes, monfulnesse; equivalent to manful + -ness.
Noun edit
manfulness (usually uncountable, plural manfulnesses)
- The state of being manful
- 1881, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present[1]:
- He will at least have the manfulness to depart out of it, if not; to say: "I cannot move in thee, and be a man; like a wretched drift-log dressed in man's clothes and minister's clothes, doomed to a lot baser than belongs to man, I will not continue with thee, tumbling aimless on the Mother of Dead Dogs here:--Adieu!"
- 1881, Charles Kingsley, Westminster Sermons[2]:
- He only sees his own weakness, and want of life, of spirit, of manfulness, of power.
- 1825, Thomas Carlyle, The Life of Friedrich Schiller[3]:
- Nor were these sentiments, be it remembered, the mere boasting manifesto of a hot-brained inexperienced youth, entering on literature with feelings of heroic ardour, which its difficulties and temptations would soon deaden or pervert: they are the calm principles of a man, expressed with honest manfulness, at a period when the world could compare them with a long course of conduct.