Word.ws English Dictionary

starkness

Syllables: stark·nessUK/ˈstɑːknəs/US/ˈstɑɹknəs/

starkness noun: the state or quality of being stark.

Noun

starkness (countable and uncountable, plural starknesses)

  1. (uncountable) The state or quality of being stark.
    • In the morning the framed photograph of the two of them, hanging on the sitting-room wall, was gone. The patch of wall where it had been hanging a hurtful rectangle of dusty starkness.2009, Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters’ Street, Vintage (2010), page 226
    • The power of the stories overrides everything else. The quiet starkness of the telling: […]2013 February 17, Bob Greene, “America’s ‘Slave Narratives’ should shock us”, in CNN
  2. (countable) The result or product of being stark.

Forms of starkness

pluralstarknesses

Origin of starkness

From Middle English starknes, starkenes, starkenesse, equivalent to stark + -ness.

Words that rhyme with starkness

Questions about starkness

What does starkness mean?
Starkness means the state or quality of being stark.
What part of speech is starkness?
Starkness is a noun.
How do you pronounce starkness?
Starkness is pronounced /ˈstɑːknəs/ (UK).
What is the plural of starkness?
The plural of starkness is starknesses.

Words near starkness in the dictionary

  1. Starkling
  2. Starklings
  3. starkly
  4. Starkman
  5. Starkmans
  6. starkness
  7. starknesses
  8. starks
  9. Starksboro
  10. Starkses
  11. Starkville

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: starkness (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: “starkness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/starkness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.