undesirableness
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
undesirable + -ness
Noun[edit]
undesirableness (countable and uncountable, plural undesirablenesses)
- (uncountable) The condition or quality of being undesirable.
- 1668, John Owen, chapter 11, in The Nature, Power, Deceit and Prevalency of Indwelling-Sin in Believers[1], London: G. Keith, published 1774, page 184:
- These are the things that are in the world; from these doth sin take all its baits, whereby it enticeth and entangleth our souls. If the heart be filled with the cross of Christ, it casts death and undesirableness upon them all, it leaves no seeming beauty, no appearing pleasure or comeliness in them.
- 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter II, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volumes (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC:
- The undesirableness of any other house in the same neighbourhood for Sir Walter was certainly much strengthened by one part, and a very material part of the scheme, which had been happily engrafted on the beginning. He was not only to quit his home, but to see it in the hands of others; a trial of fortitude, which stronger heads than Sir Walter’s have found too much.
- 1928, Carter G. Woodson, chapter 37, in Negro Makers of History[2], Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, pages 328–329:
- To discredit the Negro officers in general all sorts of reports were circulated as to their undesirableness. In addition to being humiliated, they were sent to labor battalions or to some remote position to please those who could not bear the thought of having Negro officers in their sight.
- (countable, rare) An undesirable quality or thing.
- 1884, Katherine Lee, chapter 7, in In London Town[3], volume I, page 128:
- […] Harcourt Street combined within its precincts all the undesirablenesses that had existed separately in all the other streets she had visited. It was old and dirty, noisy yet dull, swarming with children, and overrun with costermongers, hand-organs, and cats.