primevalness

English

Alternative forms

• primaevalness

Etymology

From primeval +‎ -ness.

Noun

primevalness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being primeval.
   • [1760, The New Universal Etymological English Dictionary: […], 5th edition, London: […] W. Johnston:

     PRIME´VALNESS } (of primævalus, L. and neſs) the being of the firſt age.]

   • 1856, Daniel Shepherd, “The War Path”, in Saratoga. A Story of 1787., New York, N.Y.: W. P. Fetridge & Co., […]. Boston, Mass.: Williams & Co., […], page 369:

     He was traversing a rude forest pathway; bushes and half-decayed stumps lined the track, towering, mossy trees hung solemn and shadowy above him; there was rudeness, savageness, primevalness around him.

   • 1861, “Correspondence. Physical and Moral Sciences in Relation to Religion.”, in The Rambler, volume VI, page 389:

     Let any number of new hideous apes be found in Africa, and hailed as a more remote progenitor by enlightened naturalists, I will be satisfied to end my genealogy at the first of the line endowed with reason, instead of pursuing it into the primevalness of ferocity.

   • 1872, E. Marlitt, “The Little Princess of the Heath”, in The Ladies’ Repository, a Universalist Monthly Magazine for the Home Circle, volume XLVIII, Boston, Mass.: […] the Universalist Publishing House, page 439:

     This piece of woodland was delightful in its seeming primevalness.

   • 1995, Jo Ray McCuen, Readings for Writers, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, →ISBN, page 361:

     Then I sat in that little nook—leaving the door open so I could watch the shadows—thinking about the primevalness of my life.

Synonyms

• primevality