suavity

From Middle English suavite, suavitee, suavyte, from Middle French suavité and its etymon Latin suāvitās.^[1]

suavity (countable and uncountable, plural suavities)

1. The quality of being sweet or pleasing to the mind; agreeableness; pleasantness

   suavity of manners

   suavity of language, conversation, or address

   • 1874, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Ordered South”, in Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], published 1881, →OCLC, pages 142–143:

     [N]othing, not even the crude curves of the railway, can utterly deform the suavity of contour of one bay after another along the whole reach of the Riviera.

   • 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “[Our Lady of the Snows.] The Monks.”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 101:

     [T]he brothers’ gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with his religious name upon a board,—names full of legendary suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; […]

2. The quality of being suave.

   Synonyms: suaveness, suavitude

   • 1939, T. S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats:

     Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
     There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.

3. (obsolete) Sweetness or agreeableness to the senses, especially of taste and odour.
   • 1513, Henry Bradshaw, edited by Edward Hawkins, The Holy Lyfe and History of Saynt Werburge: Very Frutefull for All Christen People to Rede (Remains Historical & Literary Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester Published by The Chetham Society; volume XV), […] The Chetham Society, published 1848:

     Whan this ſayd monument diſcouered was / Suche a ſuauite and fragrant odoure / Aſcended from the corps by ſingular grace / Paſſyng all worldly ſwetnes and ſauour / That all there present that day and hour / Suppoſed they had ben / in the felicite / Of erthely paradiſe / without ambiguite.

• blandness