ponderousnessn.

c1484 (a1475) J. de Caritate tr. Secreta Secret. (Takamiya) (1977) 160 (MED) He þat slepyth so myche þat he felyth in hys stomak none heuynes ner ponderusnes..lette hym neuir fer of þe gowte.

1598 A. M. tr. J. Guillemeau Frenche Chirurg. 5 b/1 Whether the bullet, throughe his ponderousnes, might be descended.

1662 J. Dauncey Eng. Lovers ii. i. 99 Such was the ponderousness of the strokes that they would have forced the Heaven.

1672 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 7 4096 By finding out the Ponderousness of Crystal in reference to Water.

1703 D. Russen Iter Lunare 80 The Woman..was uncapable of over-mastering the ponderousness of Matter by the Contention of her Will.

1757 E. M. da Costa Nat. Hist. Fossils 6 On account of its appearance and ponderousness Boccone thinks it to contain metalline particles.

1853 J. Ruskin Stones of Venice II. vii. 239 Thus the greater ponderousness of the traceries is only an indication of the greater lightness of the structure.

1940 Times 4 July 5/6 It involved a reduction in the size and ponderousness of the existing divisions.

2000 M. Moore Desiring Voices ii. 50 Stone's very materiality, its ponderousness, signifies something here.

1557 W. Baldwin & T. Palfreyman Treat. Morall Philos. (new ed.) i. xlv. f. 36 Pacuuius..is commended of Quintilian for the grauitie of hys sentences, the ponderousenes of his wordes.

1664 R. Flecknoe Short Disc. Eng. Stage in Love's Kingdom G vj Shakespear excelled in a natural Vein, Fletcher in Wit, and Johnson in Gravity and ponderousness of Style.

a1677 T. Manton 190 Serm. on 119th Psalm (1681) ci. 621 It may note the depth and ponderousness of these thoughts; his mind did not run out upon the Law with slighty sallies, but he had such thoughts as were solid and serious, and did abide with him.

1801 J. Aikin et al. Gen. Biogr. II. 209/1 Palladio was his great model, and he was not entirely free from the massy ponderousness of that master.

1881 M. Arnold in Macmillan's Mag. 43 370/2 The slovenliness and tunelessness of much of Byron's production, the pompousness and ponderousness of much of Wordsworth's.

1963 Times 30 May 15/1 A springy rhythmic gait that banished every trace of ponderousness.

1992 Nation (N.Y.) 26 Oct. 483/1 The trouble with Levine as a Wagnerian conductor has always been his tendency to confuse ponderousness with seriousness.