terribility
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English
Etymology
From Middle English terryblete, from Middle French terribleté, terribilité and its etymon, Late Latin terribilitās.[1]
Noun
terribility (usually uncountable, plural terribilities)
- The quality of being terrible.
- Synonym: terribleness
- 1653, James Howell, “The Oration of the Lord George Frederique, Baron of Limburg, and Hereditary Officer to the Sacred Roman Empire, and Allwayes Free. Against Spain.”, in A German Diet: Or, The Ballance of Europe, , London: Humphrey Moseley, , →OCLC, page 26:
- VVhen I deſcend into my ſelf, and contemplat my moſt terrible horrible terribility, I can hardly hold my ſelf vvithin my ſelf; […]
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 17: Ithaca]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, , →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 654:
- What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and woman? […] the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.
References
- ^ “terribility, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
