loveliness

From Middle English luflynes; equivalent to lovely +‎ -ness.

• enPR: lŭv′lēnəs, IPA^(key): /ˈlʌvlinəs/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: love‧li‧ness

loveliness (countable and uncountable, plural lovelinesses)

1. (uncountable) The property of being lovely, of attractiveness, beauty, appearing to be lovable.
   • 1818, John Keats, “Book I”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] [T. Miller] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 3, lines 1–5:

     A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness; but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep / Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     Then, seated in her barbaric chair above them all, with myself at her feet, was the veiled white woman, whose loveliness and awesome power seemed to visibly shine about her like a halo, or rather like the glow from some unseen light.

2. (countable) The result of being lovely.
3. (zoology, collective) A group of ladybirds.
   • 2016, David Mark, Dead Pretty, Hachette UK, page 10

     'A loveliness of ladybirds,' whispers Roisin to her sleeping child, and looks at her husband proudly. He grins back. 'Aye, the plague of last summer. Couldn't pick up a glass of lemonade without finding a hundred ladybirds using it as a bubble-bath.'

   • 2018, Natalie Rompella, The World Never Sleeps, Tilbury House, p18

     A loveliness of ladybugs is enjoying lunch - little aphids that pepper a crop of soybeans.

   • 2019, Jayne Fresina, A Loveliness of Ladybirds, Twisted-E Publishing LLC, page 71

     Sparks of sunlight caught on a loveliness of ladybirds that had floated into the waiting room through an open door.