doubleness

doubleness

English

Etymology

From Middle English doublenesse; equivalent to double +‎ -ness.

Noun

doubleness (usually uncountable, plural doublenesses)

1. The state of being double or doubled.
   • 1540, Great Bible, 1 Chronicles 12 [verse 33],

     And of Zabulon that went out to the battayle and proceded forth to the war, with all maner of instrumentes of war fyftie M. that were prepared to the war, without any doublenesse of herte.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:

     If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, “Solitude,” p. 146,

     I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it;

   • 1983, Cynthia Ozick, The Cannibal Galaxy, New York: Knopf, p. 17,

     It was easy for him, when he saw the straight march of his school, the old section taller and wider and brighter than the new wing, and the new wing following in its narrow dark doubleness, to think of boxcars.

2. Behaviour intended to deceive people.

   Synonyms: double-dealing, duplicity, insincerity

   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “(please specify the story)”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], OCLC 230972125; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, OCLC 932884868, lines 746-750:

     Al to symple is my tonge to pronounce,
     As ministre of my wit, the doublenesse
     Of this chanoun, roote of alle cursednesse!
     He semed freendly to hem that knewe hym noght,
     But he was feendly bothe in werk and thoght.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

   • 1577, England = William Harrison, “[An Historicall Description of the Islande of Britayne, [….] 14.]”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, OCLC 55195564, folio 39, recto, column 1:

     But if it be a vice to coulour craftinesse, subtile practises, doublenesse and hollow behauiour, with a cloke of pollicie, amitie and wisedome, then are Comineus and his companie to be reputed vicious.

   • 1860, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 9, in The Mill on the Floss […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, OCLC 80067893, page 141:

     It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a hypocrite,—capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end;

   • 1963, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, New York: Bantam, 1972, Chapter 8, p. 79,

     I plummeted down [the ski hill] past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromise, into my own past.

Synonyms

• (state of being double): See also Thesaurus:twoness

References

• doubleness in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913