laxityn.

1528 T. Paynell tr. Arnaldus de Villa Nova in Joannes de Mediolano Regimen Sanitatis Salerni (1535) 119 b Superfluous drynkynge of cold drynke..causeth the palsey, or laxite of the membres.

1620 T. Venner Via Recta viii. 184 The stomacke..if it be subiect to laxitie.

1672 R. Wiseman Treat. Wounds ii. v. 36 There arises a laxity and indigesture in the Wound.

1707 J. Floyer Physician's Pulse-watch 203 The Laxity of Fibres in the Habit of the Body, or Viscera, is restored by Exercise, Friction, and cold Baths.

1769 W. Buchan Domest. Med. ii. 385 This disease may..proceed from too great a laxity of the organs which secrete the urine.

1775 S. Johnson Let. 13 July (1992) II. 246 In her early state of laxity and feebleness.

1789 M. Underwood Treat. Dis. Children (rev. ed.) II. 14 The great moisture and laxity of infants.

1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 229 The skin..by the closenesse or laxitie thereof, as he drawes it in, or lets it out.

1660 R. Boyle New Exper. Physico-mechanicall xxxvi. 300 The dif-form consistence, as to laxity and compactness of the Air at several distances from us.

1693 R. Bentley Boyle Lect. vii. 25 The former [cause] could never beget Whirlpools in a Chaos of so great a Laxity and Thinness.

1623 H. Cockeram Eng. Dict. Laxitie, pardon, chiefly cheapnesse.

1656 T. Blount Glossographia Laxity, looseness, wildness, liberty.

1775 S. Johnson Taxation no Tyranny 20 Every expedition would in those days of laxity have produced a distinct and independent state.

1795 W. Mason Ess. Eng. Church Music iii. 187 I need not observe on the laxity of that Version.

1830 W. Scott Lett. Demonol. & Witchcraft viii. 260 Such laxity of discipline afforded scope to the wildest enthusiasm.

1838 J. H. Newman Parochial Serm. (1839) IV. ix. 156 All these laxities of conduct impress upon our conscience a vague sense..of guilt.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. ix. 422 The very faults of their colleague, the known laxity of his principles.

1858 J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. (ed. 2) III. xvi. 407 Laxity of assertion in matters of number is so habitual as to have lost the character of falsehood.

1865 E. B. Tylor Res. Early Hist. Mankind iv. 77 Carelessness and laxity in articulation.

1870 J. E. T. Rogers Hist. Gleanings 2nd Ser. 54 Laxity of belief is coupled with laxity of practice.

1875 Protests Lords I. Pref. 10 A laxity of language, which must have conveyed far more than the framers of the Act contemplated.

1875 B. Jowett tr. Plato Dialogues (ed. 2) III. 265 Such tales..engender laxity of morals among the young.

1650 T. Fuller Pisgah-sight of Palestine ii. v. 122 The hills in Palestine generally had in their sides plenty of caves, and those of such laxity and receit, that ours in England are but conny-boroughs if compared to the palaces which those hollow places afforded.