-ness
suffixUK /nəs/ · US /nəs/
Etymology From Middle English -nes, -nesse, from Old English -nis, -nes, from Proto-West Germanic *-nassī, from Proto-Germanic *-inassuz. This suffix was formed already in Proto-Germanic by false division of the final consonant *-n- of the preceding stem + the actual suffix *-assuz. The latter was in turn derived from an earlier *-at(s)-tuz, from the verbal suffix *-at-janą + the noun suffix *-þuz. Compare German -nis and Dutch -nis of the same origin.
Morpheme Appended in general, often informally, stylistically, or jocularly, for reification of an attribute.
- 1865 Lewis Carrol: Alice in Wonderland; CHAPTER VII: A Mad Tea-Party. You know you say things are "much of a muchness.." — did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness!
- The adrenocortical carcinoma symptoms ... are moonface, abdominousness, high blood pressure, hirsutes, pink striae, plethora, decaleification, irrespective of sex...1942 Mount Sinai Hospital (New York, N.Y.) Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, Volume 8, Part 2 p.515
1 more example
- The Czech people and countryside of Mr Lukas' camera are universal. In the aged peasants there is none of that wrinkled, ham, old gafferishness to which we have become accustomed by clever photography, but there is the feel of the earth by which these people have lived...1948 Helen A. Archdale, Margaret Haig Thomas Mackworth: Time & Tide - Volume 29 - Page 407
Morpheme Appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of being (the adjective)", "the quality of being (the adjective)", or "the measure of being (the adjective)".
- calm + -ness → calmness
- eerie + -ness → eeriness
2 more examples
- kind + -ness → kindness
- one + -ness → oneness
Morpheme Appended to words of other parts of speech to form nouns (often nonce words or terms in philosophy) meaning the state/quality/measure of the idea represented by these words.
- that + -ness → thatness
- tree + -ness → treeness
1 more example
- thug + -ness → thugness