Word.ws English Dictionary

tristeness

tristeness noun: sadness.

Noun

tristeness (uncountable)

  1. (rare) Sadness.
    • I think I have somewhere met with the observation that nobody ever leaves paris but with a degree of tristeness.1785 June 6, Abigail Adams, edited by Julian P. Boyd, Mina R. Bryan, and Elizabeth L. Hutter, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, volume 8 (25 February to 31 October 1785), Princeton, N.J.: Princeton...
    • This gloomy tristeness reigns triumphant over most of the streets, except when a review, or some other public occasion, attracts the population of the provinces.[…]; and, owing to there being no theatres, concerts, balls, or merry-making, an air of indescribable tristeness pervaded every thing...1836, Sketches of Germany and the Germans, with a Glance at Poland, Hungary, & Switzerland, in 1834, 1835, and 1836, volume I, London: Whittaker & Co., pages 67, 127, and 282

Forms of tristeness

alternative formtristness

Origin of tristeness

From triste + -ness. Compare Middle English trystenes.

Questions about tristeness

What does tristeness mean?
Tristeness means sadness.
What part of speech is tristeness?
Tristeness is a noun.

Words near tristeness in the dictionary

  1. tristearin
  2. tristearins
  3. tristed
  4. tristeful
  5. Tristen
  6. tristeness
  7. tristes
  8. tristesse
  9. tristetrahedral
  10. tristetrahedron
  11. tristetraprolin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tristeness (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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