averseness
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]averseness (usually uncountable, plural aversenesses)
- The quality of being averse; opposition of mind.
- Synonyms: aversion, disinclination, unwillingness
- 1600, George Abbot, An Exposition upon the Prophet Jonah[1], London, Lecture 4, p. 65:
- Oh the stubburnnesse of iniquitie, and mans auersenesse from his maker.
- 1742, Samuel Richardson, Pamela[2], London, Volume 4, Letter 56, p. 363:
- […] the Fondness or Averseness of the Child to some Servants […] will at any time let one know, whether their Love to the Baby is uniform and the same, when one is absent, as present.
- 1893 April, Thomas Hardy, “The Fiddler of the Reels”, in Life’s Little Ironies […], London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], published 1894, →OCLC, page 181:
- There were tones in it [his fiddling] which bred the immediate conviction that indolence and averseness to systematic application were all that lay between 'Mop' and the career of a second [Niccolò] Paganini.