Dictionary

sweet-heartedness en · NOUN

Etymology

From sweet-hearted + -ness.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) The quality of being sweet-hearted.
   • Her letter lay on the table beside him, and with it a faded, old-fashioned card photograph of Aunt Eliza, which would have signified nothing to a stranger, but in seeing which Stephen could call up vividly the arch smile, the unconscious grace, the pure sweet-heartedness which had made the little old lady so dear to him. 1895 January, Caroline Atwater Mason, “A Minister of the World”, in The Ladies’ Home Journal, volume XII, number 2, Philadelphia, Pa.: Curtis Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, section V, page 8, column 3:
   • What ails it them though I be soft or hard? / Soft hearts would weep and weep and let men die / For very mercy and sweet-heartedness; / I that weep little for my pity’s sake, / I have the grace to save men. 1865, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Chastelard; a Tragedy, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, Act IV (Murray), scene iv, pages 162–163:
   • Thou sayest, too, that a crime breeds evil, but therein thou dost lack experience; for out of crimes come many good things, and out of good grows much evil. The cruel rage of the tyrant may prove a blessing to thousands who come after him, and the sweet-heartedness of a holy man may make a nation slaves. 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “Go, Woman!”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 203:

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