Word.ws English Dictionary

whatness

whatness noun: essence; quiddity.

Noun

whatness (plural whatnesses)

  1. Essence; quiddity.
    • See also Thesaurus:essence.
    Synonyms:
    nature, quintessence
  2. Quality; quantity.
    • For in one sense whatness signifies substance and this particular thing, and in another sense it signifies each of the other categories, such as quantity, quality and the like.1961, Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle: Volume 2

Synonyms of whatness

Forms of whatness

pluralwhatnesses

Origin of whatness

From what + -ness. First attested in 1611.

Questions about whatness

What does whatness mean?
Whatness means essence; quiddity.
What part of speech is whatness?
Whatness is a noun.
What is the plural of whatness?
The plural of whatness is whatnesses.

Words near whatness in the dictionary

  1. Whatling
  2. Whatman
  3. Whatman paper
  4. Whatman papers
  5. whatna
  6. whatness
  7. whatnesses
  8. whatnot
  9. whatnots
  10. whatnottery
  11. whats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whatness (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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