destructivenessn.
a. The quality of being destructive; tendency to destroy.
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the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > [noun] > destructiveness
perniciousness1581
destructiveness1647
ruinousness1660
interdestructiveness1817
destructivity1902
destructivism1927
1647 J. Saltmarsh Sparkles of Glory (1847) 195 Far from bearing witness to any destructiveness or persecution of them.
1738 W. Warburton Divine Legation Moses I. 35 The Destructiveness of Atheism to Society.
1796 R. Southey Joan of Arc viii. 179 A weapon for its sure destructiveness Abominated once.
1868 A. W. Kinglake Invasion of Crimea IV. v. 366 The..rashness, or rather self-destructiveness, of the charge.
1869 Echo 30 Oct. An epidemic fever unparalleled for destructiveness.
b. Phrenology. The name of a faculty or propensity having a bump or ‘organ’ allotted to it.
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1815 Edinb. Rev. 25 235 To the Order of Feelings..belong the following species..6. Destructiveness.
1828 G. Combe Constit. Man ii. §5 Destructiveness serves also to give weight to indignation.
a1875 C. Kingsley in W. B. Scoones Four Cent. Eng. Lett. 568 These same organs of destructiveness and combativeness.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1895; most recently modified version published online June 2019).
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n.1647