Obnoxious. This, in its present lax and slovenly use a vague unserviceable synonym for offensive, is properly applied to one who on the ground of a mischief or wrong committed by him is justly liable to punishment (ob noxam pœnæ obligatus); and is used in this sense by South (see below). But there often falls out of the word the sense of a wrong committed; and that of liability to punishment, whether just or unjust, only remains; it does so very markedly in the quotation from Donne. But we punish, or wish to punish, those whom we dislike, and thus ‘obnoxious’ has obtained its present sense of offensive.
They envy Christ, but they turn upon the man, who was more obnoxious to them, and they tell him that it was not lawful for him to carry his bed that day [John v. 10].—Donne, Sermon 20.
Examine thyself in the particulars of thy relations; especially where thou governest and takest accounts of others, and art not so obnoxious to them as they to thee.—Bishop Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, c. vi. sect. 2.
What shall we then say of the power of God Himself to dispose of men? little, finite, obnoxious things of his own making?—South, Sermons, 1744, vol. viii. p. 315.
He [Satan] is in a chain, and that chain is in God’s hand; and consequently, notwithstanding his utmost spite, he cannot be more malicious than he is obnoxious.—Id., ib. vol. vi. p. 287.
| Obsequious, | } |
| Obsequiousness. |
There lies ever in ‘obsequious’ at the present the sense of an observance which is overdone, of an unmanly readiness to fall in with the will of another; there lay nothing of this in the Latin ‘obsequium,’ nor yet in our English word as employed two centuries ago. See the quotation from Feltham, s. v. ‘Garb.’
Besides many other fishes in divers places, which are very obeisant and obsequious, when they be called by their names.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 970.
I ever set this down, that the only course to be held with the Queen was by obsequiousness and observance.—Lord Bacon, Defence of Himself.
His corrections are so far from compelling men to come to heaven, as that they put many men farther out of their way, and work an obduration rather than an obsequiousness.—Donne, Sermon 45.