leisureliness

leisureliness

English

Etymology

leisurely +‎ -ness

Noun

leisureliness (uncountable)

1. The property of being leisurely.
   • 1659, Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, London: William Morden, Book 3, Chapter 5, pp. 379-380,

     […] their Local Motion […] is neither by Fins nor Wings, as in Fishes or Birds, who are fain to sustain themselves by these instruments from sinking to the bottome of either Element: but it is meerly by the direction of the agitation of the particles of their Vehicle toward the place they aime at; and in such a swiftness or leasureliness as best pleases themselves, and is competible to their natures.

   • 1864, Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, “The Allegash and East Branch,” p. 296,

     […] he frequently commenced a long-winded narrative of his own accord,—repeated at length the tradition of some old battle, or some passage in the recent history of his tribe in which he had acted a prominent part, from time to time drawing a long breath, and resuming the thread of his tale, with the true storyteller’s leisureliness, perhaps after shooting a rapid,—prefacing with “we-ll-by-by,” &c., as he paddled along.

   • 1964, Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, London: Vintage, 2010,

     There is always an atmosphere of leisureliness in this place. A boy like Rick will take three or four hours to work out, and spend most of the time just yakking about show biz, about sport cars, about football and boxing […]