-ness
/nəs/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
dialectal/nɛs/
-ness suffix: appended in general, often informally, stylistically, or jocularly, for reification of an attribute.
Suffix
-ness (noun-forming suffix, countable and uncountable, plural -nesses)
- Appended in general, often informally, stylistically, or jocularly, for reification of an attribute.
- You know you say things are "much of a muchness.." — did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness!1865 Lewis Carrol: Alice in Wonderland; CHAPTER VII: A Mad Tea-Party.
- 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
- 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
- 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
-ness meaning in Tagalog, Arabic, Malay and Indonesian
-ness in Tagalog
- appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of being...", "the quality of being...", or "the measure of being..."
- ka- -an
-ness in Arabic
- appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of being...", "the quality of being...", or "the measure of being..."
- ـِيَّة -iyya
-ness in Malay
- appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of being...", "the quality of being...", or "the measure of being..."
- ke- -an
-ness in Indonesian
- appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of being...", "the quality of being...", or "the measure of being..."
- ke- -an
More languagesFewer languages
- -ness in Thai
- ความ kwaam, ภาพ pâap
- -ness in Vietnamese
- sự, nỗi, niềm
Synonyms of -ness
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of -ness
| plural | -nesses |
|---|---|
| alternative form | ⠰⠎ |
| alternative form (obsolete) | -nesse |
Origin of -ness
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.
Questions about -ness
- What does -ness mean?
- -ness means appended in general, often informally, stylistically, or jocularly, for reification of an attribute.
- What is -ness in Tagalog?
- -ness in Tagalog is ka- -an. See -ness meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is -ness?
- -ness is a suffix.
- How do you pronounce -ness?
- -ness is pronounced /nəs/ (UK).
Words near -ness in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: -ness (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl--ness.wav.
Cite this entry: “-ness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.