Word.ws English Dictionary

preteritness

preteritness is the alternative form of preteriteness.

Meaning of preteriteness

Noun

preteriteness (uncountable)

  1. The quality or state of being past.
    • A valley in the moon could scarce have been lonelier , could scarce have suggested more strongly the feeling of preteriteness and extinctionc. 1851-1852, James Russell Lowell, Leaves from My Journal in Italy and Elsewhere

Origin of preteritness

From preterit + -ness.

Questions about preteritness

What is preteritness the alternative form of?
Preteritness is the alternative form of preteriteness.

Words near preteritness in the dictionary

  1. preteriteness
  2. preterites
  3. preterition
  4. preteritions
  5. preteritive
  6. preteritness
  7. preterits
  8. preterlapsed
  9. preterlegal
  10. preterm
  11. pretermer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preteritness (page history and authors); preteriteness (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.

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