Word.ws English Dictionary

tanness

/ˈtæn.nɨs/

tanness noun: the quality or state of being tan.

Noun

tanness (uncountable)

  1. The quality or state of being tan.
    • not so much brownness as tanness
    • Does tanness mean goodness? Perceptions of tan skin in hiring decisions [article title].2015, Gillen, M. M., and Bernstein, M. J., “Does tanness mean goodness? Perceptions of tan skin in hiring decisions”, in North American Journal of Psychology, volume 17, number 1, retrieved 09 Feb...
  2. The depth (hue or saturation) of tan that is present.
    • The tanness of these Pantone values is debatable.
    1. The degree to which someone is tanned (from suntanning or from a tanning bed).
      • Dull skin absorbs color. […] Bright blue, or cold colors, increase the tanness. Warm colors reduce the tanness.1938, Edward Reich, Selling to the Consumer, page 111

Origin of tanness

From tan + -ness.

Questions about tanness

What does tanness mean?
Tanness means the quality or state of being tan.
What part of speech is tanness?
Tanness is a noun.
How do you pronounce tanness?
Tanness is pronounced /ˈtæn.nɨs/.

Words near tanness in the dictionary

  1. tanneries
  2. tannerite
  3. tanners
  4. tannery
  5. Tannese
  6. tanness
  7. tannest
  8. tanni-
  9. tannia
  10. tannic
  11. tannic acid

Source and license

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