sonliness

sonliness noun: the quality of being sonly.

Noun

sonliness (uncountable)

The quality of being sonly.
- In this was evidenced beyond all controversy the divine sonliness of the ever pious Jesus.1859 August, “The Piety of Jesus”, in The Christian Advocate: A Monthly Magazine to Plead for an Unqualified Return to the Faith Once for All Delivered to the Saints, volume III, number 8, Edinburgh...
- May like obedience, confidence, / Truth, sonliness, and heart, / Constellate here, and radiate hence! / Semblance and chill depart!1883, Brotherhood, Fellowship, and Acting Together. Further Practical Reflections in Rhyme., London: Elliot Stock; Edinburgh: MacNiven & Wallace, page 12

And see how that brings out the sonliness.1897, William Tatlock, The Revelation of God in Christ and Other Sermons, Preached at St. John’s Church, Stamford, Connecticut, New York...
While the fatherliness of Lincoln appears, the sonliness of the lad is no less evident.1913 January 30, ““Father Abraham””, in Southwestern Christian Advocate, volume 42, number 5, New Orleans, La.:
God, having given you the position of sons, also gives you the spirit of sonliness.1925 August, A[lfred] W[alter] F[rank] Blunt, The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians in the Revised Version, Oxford: at the Clarendon Press...
This had nothing to do with love, or sonliness.a. 1961, Percy Grainger, Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger, Oxford University Press, published 2006, page 147:

From sonly + -ness.

What does sonliness mean?: Sonliness means the quality of being sonly.
How do you use sonliness in a sentence?: And see how that brings out the sonliness.
What part of speech is sonliness?: Sonliness is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: sonliness (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: 2026-09-02

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