Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being noble.
  • noun Greatness of excellence or worth; loftiness; excellence; magnanimity; elevation of mind; nobility.
  • noun Stateliness; grandeur; magnificence.
  • noun Excellence; choiceness of quality.
  • noun Of metals, freedom from liability to rust.
  • noun Synonyms See nobility and noble.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being noble; greatness; dignity; magnanimity; elevation of mind, character, or station; nobility; grandeur; stateliness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality or state of being noble; nobility or grandeur

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of elevation of mind and exaltation of character or ideals or conduct

Etymologies

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Examples

  • 'And year by year,' said Harding, 'I watched to see whether the direst want could bring you to humbleness, and saw you only grow in nobleness; and year by year I lay in wait for my four-footed quarry each Midsummer Eve beside the Wishing-Pool, and saw it grow in kingliness.

    Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard 1921

  • I am already considered by the French nobility as Thomas de Longueville; you may personate the Red Reaver: Scotland does not yet know that he was slain; and the reputation of his valor and a certain nobleness in his wild warfare having placed him, in the estimation of our shores, rather in the light of one of their own island sea-kings than in that of his real character – a gallant, though fierce pirate, – the aid of his name would bring no evil odor to our joint appearance.

    The Scottish Chiefs 1875

  • "And year by year," said Harding, "I watched to see whether the direst want could bring you to humbleness, and saw you only grow in nobleness; and year by year I lay in wait for my four-footed quarry each Midsummer Eve beside the Wishing-Pool, and saw it grow in kingliness.

    Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard 1922

  • How great the sin of seizing on this very time, when special efforts are being made to enlist the world's sympathies in behalf of the millions of our robbed, outraged, crushed countrymen -- how great the sin, of seizing on such a time to attempt to neutralize those efforts, by ascribing to the oppressors of these millions a characteristic "nobleness" -- "enthusiastic attachment to personal right" -- "disinterestedness which has always marked the southern character" -- and a superiority to all others "in making any sacrifice for the public good!"

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • "A gentleman of blood is defined to descend of three descents of nobleness, that is to saie, of name and of armes both by father and mother" (p. 161).

    Shakespeare's Family 1885

  • In the third act there is a beautiful love-scene between Edgar and Lucy, the dialogue being especially felicitous in tenderness and grace and fraught with that reverential quality, that condition of commingled ecstasy and nobleness, which is always characteristic of the experience of this passion in pure natures.

    Shadows of the Stage William Winter 1876

  • Ah, the drama, and the 'nobleness' of those characters!

    Absorbing Art from Newspapers James Gurney 2010

  • Speculation and conjecture create the contrivance, which is promoted (continuously, mind you) as the controversy, and then wrapped in the "nobleness" of a conspiracy.

    Swine Flu-- Normal or Malignant? 2009

  • Therefore, speculation and conjecture create the contrivance, which is promoted (continuously, mind you) as the controversy, and then wrapped in the 'nobleness' of a conspiracy – period. by

    Swine Flu-- Normal or Malignant? 2009

  • Speculation and conjecture create the contrivance, which is promoted (continuously, mind you) as the controversy, and then wrapped in the "nobleness" of a conspiracy.

    Swine Flu-- Normal or Malignant? 2009

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