woodness en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
Etymology
From Middle English woodnesse, wodnesse, from Old English wōdnes, corresponding to wood (“mad, insane”) + -ness.
Meanings
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(obsolete, uncountable) Madness, fury.
[…] with fell woodnes he effierced was, And wilfully him throwing on the gras Did beat and bounse his head and brest ful sore […].
1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 567:[…] This sodaine chaunge from feasting vnto fray Might well be likened to the Sea: whych standing at a stay The woodnesse of the windes makes rough by raising of the waue.
1567, Ovid, “The Fyft Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC: