unkindliness

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English

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Etymology

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From Middle English wnkyndlynes (“unnatural hostility or wickedness”); equivalent to unkindly +‎ -ness.[1]

Noun

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unkindliness (uncountable)

  1. (dated) Unkindness.
    • 1909, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Emily Fox-Seton‎[1]:
      Lord Walderhurst gazed at her through the monocle with an air he sometimes had of taking her measure without either unkindliness or particular interest.
  2. (archaic) Unfavourableness.
    • 1854, Elizabeth Wetherell, Queechy, Volume I‎[2]:
      Luxury did not spoil her; and any one that saw her in the soft furs of her winter wrappings, would have said that delicate cheek and frame were never made to know the unkindliness of harsher things.
  3. (obsolete) Unnaturalness.

References

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  1. ^ “unkindliness, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
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