precipitousnessn.

a1660 H. Hammond Serm. (1664) iii. 36 Precepitousness, as Trismegistus defines it, μανίας εἶδος, a species of madness in one place,..a kind of drunkenness in another.

1731 J. Constable Refl. Accuracy Style ii. 65 He makes his gentlemen enter upon matters in a hurry, and as if they were resolved to run one another immediately down into conviction, by the precipitousness of their expressions.

1841 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. May 572 Much of this precipitousness in judging must in candour be put down to Niebuhr's youth.

1904 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 10 Nov. 7/1 A mass of tawny hair, very bewitchingly disheveled from the precipitousness of her launching.

1981 Times 3 Feb. 8/6 The damage has been done by the precipitousness of the cuts.

2000 D. Adebayo My Once upon Time (2001) vi. 126 As if to compensate for the precipitousness of his move, he'd begun patting me on the back.

1832 M. Scott Tom Cringle's Log xv, in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Nov. 763/1 The left or western bank of the narrow entrance to the harbour..ran out in all its precipitousness and beauty.

1865 A. Geikie Scenery & Geol. Scotl. viii. 224 Where a vertical wall of granite rises into the air, it may for a long while retain its precipitousness.

1896 Atlantic Monthly Dec. 816/1 The road..described many a curve seeking to obviate the precipitousness of the descent.

1926 Geogr. Rev. 16 392 This precipitousness of slopes is of course a classic product of the desert climate.

1969 B. Berelson Family Planning Programs 19 It is not fair to compare these figures and to indicate the precipitousness of the decline in fertility.

2005 Sunday Times (Nexis) 10 Apr. (Travel section) 5 The island's precipitousness is its greatest pleasure. Island roads teeter above the sea, offering new vistas at every bend.