hardnesse

plural hardnesses

1. countableobsoleteuncountableObsolete spelling of hardness.

   And thus doe ſecure ſinners who through hardneſſe of their heart cannot repent,[…]

   1622, John Downame, chapter IX, in A Guide to Godlynesse: or, A Treatise of A Christian Life, page 60

   2 more examples

   But yet his hardnesse savde him not against the piercing dart. For hitting right betweene the scales that yeelded in that part Whereas the joynts doe knit the backe, it thirled through the skin, And pierced to his filthy mawe and greedy guts within.

   1567, Arthur Golding: Ovid's Metamorphoses Bk. 3 lines 78-81

   But pearls and Corrall, and whatsoever else hath a saxatile hardnesse of shell-fish, must give place truly to gemmes for hardnesse; and yet they are not therefore digested in the Athanor of our Oeconomy, so well as in the stomack of some birds. But the stones of Bezoar and of Crabs &c. not so hard as pearls, are not of a saxatile nature: but are rather made of a lacteous semi-caseate & semi-petrified juice, and have a neutrall nature of a tophe, between a Cartilage and a stone.

   1651, Noah Biggs, Matæotechnia medicinæ praxeōs, The vanity of the craft of physick, or, A new dispensatory wherein is dissected the errors, ignorance, impostures and supinities of the schools in their main pillars of purges, blood-letting, fontanels or issues, and diet, &c., and the particular medicines of the shops : with an humble motion for the reformation of the universities and the whole landscap [sic] of physick, and discovering the terra incognita of chymistrie : to the Parliament of England, London: Printed for Edward Blackmore, page 95