A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 2000 (DOST Vol. VIII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Severité, Severity, n. Also: severyté, -itie, seweritie, sevirité, (severititie). [e.m.E. seuerity (1481), severyte (1538), seueritie (1565), F. sévérité (16th c. in Larousse) (OF severiteit (12th c.)), L. sevēritāt- seriousness, gravity, earnestness.] a. Severity, rigour, harshness, chiefly of the law and its implementation, also of the person implementing the law. b. specif. A state in which a person is being subjected to severe or harsh treatment.a. 1490 Irland Mir. III 61/19.
The saule sal be punyst … with sic rigour … that na lefand man nor woman may knaw the gret seuerite & bitternes of it 1533 Bell. Livy I 235/18.
[Nothing] mycht move him … to soft or humyl ony thing in seuerite of his orisoun 1549 Compl. 9/2.
The seuerite of thir strict ordinance var augmentit be … the grit kyng of Egipt 1561 Knox VI 131.
Men … have often compleaned upon my severitie 1570 Leslie 167.
To this seueryte of his, wes joinit … a certane mercifull pitye, quhilk he did oftymes show to sic as had offendit 1581 St. A. Kirk S. 473.
And we willing to wyn synneris wyth quietnes rather nor sevirite to repentans 1596 Dalr. I 225/19.
He forbad throuch seueritie of ane edicte, that [etc.] 1598 James VI Basil. Doron 62/9.
Quhen ye haue be the seuerititie of iustice anis setled youre cuntreis 1584-9 Maxwall Commonpl. Bk. Prov. No. 36.
The presoner is not to be pitied quha being ane jwdge joyed in seweritie & crueltie 1682 Lauder Observes App. iv 309.
[The] misdemeanors of that tyke was so great, that the highest severity was too little 1687 Haddington Corr. 199.
If he give not the three hundreth merk betwixt and Lammas, he may expect nothing but severity from meb. 1596 Dalr. II 2/1.
God wald nocht suffir him langre to be haldne in sik seueritie
