woodness
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English woodnesse, wodnesse, from Old English wōdnes, corresponding to wood (“mad, insane”) + -ness.
Noun edit
woodness (uncountable)
- (obsolete) Madness, fury.
- 1567, Ovid, “The Fyft Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC:
- […] This sodaine chaunge from feasting vnto fray
Might well be likened to the Sea: whych standing at a stay
The woodnesse of the windes makes rough by raising of the waue.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 567:
- […] with fell woodnes he effierced was,
And wilfully him throwing on the gras
Did beat and bounse his head and brest ful sore […] .