vastity
English
Etymology
From Middle French vastité or its source, Latin vastitas.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈvɑːstɪti/
Noun
vastity (countable and uncountable, plural vastities)
- (obsolete) Emptiness or desolation.
- 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, partition I, section 2, member 4, subsection vii:
- Leo Decimus was so much bewailed in Rome after his departure, that […] all good fellowship, peace, mirth, and plenty died with him, tanquam eodem sepulchro cum Leone condita lugebantur; for it was a golden age whilst he lived, but after his decease an iron season succeeded […], wars, plagues, vastity, discontent.
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- Vastness.
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:, II.12:
- there is no […] soule so skittish and stubborne, that hath not a feeling of some reverence in considering the clowdy vastitie and gloomie canapies of our churches […].
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