The Collaborative International Dictionary
Notorious \No*to"ri*ous\, a. [L. notorius pointing out, making known, fr. noscere, notum, to known: cf. F. notoire. See Know.] Generally known and talked of by the public; universally believed to be true; manifest to the world; evident; -- usually in an unfavorable sense; as, a notorious thief; a notorious crime or vice.
Your goodness,
Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.
--Shak.
Syn: Distinguished; remarkable; conspicuous; celebrated; noted; famous; renowned. [1913 Webster] -- No*to"ri*ous*ly, adv. -- No*to"ri*ous*ness, n.
Wiktionary
n. notoriety, infamy
Usage examples of "notoriousness".
Here we see, that the nobility insisted on the trial by combat, because of the inconvenience of the proof introduced by the clergy, that notwithstanding the clamors of the nobility, the notoriousness of the abuse which called out loudly for redress, and the authority of Otho who came into Italy to speak and act as master, still the clergy held out in two Councils.
Hence are not only those gods, concerning whom we have already spoken much, and many others belonging to different nations and lands, but also those of whom we are now treating, who have been selected as it were into the senate of the gods,-selected, however, on account of the notoriousness of their crimes, not on account of the dignity of their virtues,-whose sacred things Varro tempts to refer to certain natural reasons, seeking to make base things honorable, but cannot find how to square and agree with these reasons, because these are not the causes of those rites, which he thinks, or rather wishes to be thought to be so.