flagitiousness

English

Etymology

From flagitious +‎ -ness.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fləˈdʒɪʃəsnəs/

Noun

flagitiousness (uncountable)

1. The state or quality of being flagitious; wickedness, infamy.
   • 1718, Isaac Sharpe, An Historical Account Of the Rise and Growth of Heresie in the Christian Church, etc., part 1, page 74:

     Anſelm calls a Synod at St. Paul’s, where was this Statute made; We condemn this Sodomitical Flagitiouſneſs in any, and thoſe that aſſiſt them, with a heavy Anathema.

   • 1790, John ‘Walking’ Stewart, The Moral State of Nations, or Travels Over the Most Interesting Parts of the Globe, etc., the 1837 edition, page 28:

     [H]ow can he esteem himself, when conscience will ever upbraid him with the participation in an act, whose flagitiousness is so great, that unless he renounces the character of man, his very share would be sufficient to sink him under the most ignominious contempt […]?

   • 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC:

     [T]he man of sensibility, who thus, perhaps, complains, by his promiscuous amours produces a most destructive barrenness and contagious flagitiousness of manners.

   • September 6, 1808, Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to William Short”, in Jefferson: Political Writings, Cambridge U Press (3rd edition, 2005), p. 276

     The papers have lately advanced in boldness and flagitiousness beyond even themselves.