terribility

English

Etymology

From Middle English terryblete, from Middle French terribleté, terribilité and its etymon, Late Latin terribilitās.[1]

Noun

terribility (usually uncountable, plural terribilities)

  1. The quality of being terrible.
    Synonym: terribleness
    • 1653, James Howell, “The Oration of the Lord George Frederique, Baron of Limburg, and Hereditary Officer to the Sacred Roman Empire, and Allwayes Free. Against Spain.”, in A German Diet: Or, The Ballance of Europe, […], London: […] Humphrey Moseley, […], →OCLC, page 26:
      VVhen I deſcend into my ſelf, and contemplat my moſt terrible horrible terribility, I can hardly hold my ſelf vvithin my ſelf; […]
    • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 17: Ithaca]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 654:
      What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and woman? […] the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.

References
  1. “terribility, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
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