sickerness
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English sikirnes, sikernesse, Old English sicornes (“certainty; secureness”), equivalent to sicker (“secure”) + -ness.
Noun edit
sickerness (uncountable)
- (obsolete) the state, condition, or quality of being certain; certainty; assurance.
- (archaic) security; safety; freedom from danger.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Lightly she leaped, as a wight forlore, / From her dull horse, in desperate distresse, / And to her feet betooke her doubtfull sickernesse.
- 1980, John Skelton, Paula Neuss, Magnificence - Page 215:
- Comprehending the world casual and transitory, Who list to consider shall never be beguiled, If it be regist'red well in memory; A plain example of worldly vainglory: How in this world there is no sickerness, But fallible flattery enmixed with bitterness.