Word.ws English Dictionary

oweness

UK/ˈəʊnəs/US/ˈoʊnəs/

oweness noun: eggcorn of onus; the condition of being obligated or responsible for something.

Noun

oweness (usually uncountable, plural owenesses)

  1. (usually) Eggcorn of onus; the condition of being obligated or responsible for something.
    • These signs can be placed so that they dont^([sic]) impeed^([sic]) traffic patterns. The oweness is on the driver to read the signs in a safe and timely manner in my opinon^([sic]).2015 February 10, Village of Downers Grove, “rEmarks Data for February 10, 2015 Village Council Meeting”, in www.downers.us
    • “Why I’m coming on camera and addressing you is because for you to make that statement as if the oweness is on the Black community to celebrate you and the band when you didn’t celebrate us,” Kim says in the video.2021 January 2, Revolt Staff, “Singer Kim Hill responds to Will.i.am’s comments about the Black Eyed Peas”, in Revolt

Forms of oweness

pluralowenesses
alternative formowness

Origin of oweness

An eggcorn of onus, as owe (“to be under obligation”, verb) + -ness (abstract-noun suffix), interpretable as "the state of being under obligation." The eggcorn may have been produced due to the frequency of the collocation "the onus [is/was] on [someone] to," whereas onus is very rarely used in popular speech without this collocation.

Words that rhyme with oweness

Questions about oweness

What does oweness mean?
Oweness means eggcorn of onus; the condition of being obligated or responsible for something.
What part of speech is oweness?
Oweness is a noun.
How do you pronounce oweness?
Oweness is pronounced /ˈəʊnəs/ (UK).
What is the plural of oweness?
The plural of oweness is owenesses.

Words near oweness in the dictionary

  1. Owen Sound
  2. Owen Stanley Range
  3. Owenby
  4. Owenbys
  5. owendaw
  6. oweness
  7. owenettid
  8. owenettids
  9. Owenian
  10. oweniid
  11. oweniids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oweness (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:

Cite this entry: “oweness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oweness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.