rankness

From rank +‎ -ness.

rankness (countable and uncountable, plural ranknesses)

1. The quality of being rank, of having a repulsive or pungent odor.
   • 1578, Raphael Holinshed et al., Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande, Volume I, Book 3, Chapter 1 “Of cattell kept for profit,” p. 222,

     […] the bowels of the beast are commonlie cast awaie because of their ranknesse […]

   • 1933, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, chapter 34, in South Moon Under‎:

     A match scratched and the sweet rankness of his corn-cob pipe drifted through the rooms.

2. Exuberant or uncontrolled growth.
   • 1706, John Dryden, “To my Dear Friend Mr. Congreve, On His Comedy, call’d, The Double-Dealer” in The Double Dealer by William Congreve, London: Jacob Tonson,

     Like Janus he the stubborn Soil manur’d,

     With Rules of Husbandry the Rankness cur’d:

     Tam’d us to Manners, when the Stage was rude;

     And boistrous English Wit, with Art indu’d.

   • 1847, Emily Brontë, chapter 18, in Wuthering Heights‎:

     […] a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances.

   • 1970, Barry Unsworth, The Hide, New York: Norton, published 1997, page 139:

     […] briar and bramble shoots lay athwart one’s path with thorns like arrowheads often concealed in tangles of grass and willowherb and cow parsley, while underlying this rankness, like a reminder of a more elegant epoch, one was aware at times of Howard’s cultivation, rose and magnolia and peony continued to flower […]

3. (obsolete) Exuberance, excessiveness.
   • 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     First Gentleman. God save you, sir! where have you been broiling?
     Third Gentleman. Among the crowd i’ the Abbey; where a finger
     Could not be wedged in more: I am stifled
     With the mere rankness of their joy.

4. (obsolete) Insolence.
   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     I will physic your rankness […]