-ness
suffix ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Appended in general, often informally, stylistically, or jocularly, for reification of an attribute. morpheme
"1865 Lewis Carrol: Alice in Wonderland; CHAPTER VII: A Mad Tea-Party. You know you say things are "much of a muchness.." — did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness!"
- 2 Appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of being (the adjective)", "the quality of being (the adjective)", or "the measure of being (the adjective)". morpheme
"calm + -ness → calmness"
- 3 Appended to words of other parts of speech to form nouns (often nonce words or terms in philosophy) meaning the state/quality/measure of the idea represented by these words. morpheme
"that + -ness → thatness"
Example
More examples"1865 Lewis Carrol: Alice in Wonderland; CHAPTER VII: A Mad Tea-Party. You know you say things are "much of a muchness.." — did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness!"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *-ōną Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Middle English -nesse English -ness From Middle English -nes, -nesse, from Old English -nis, -nes, from Proto-West Germanic *-nassī, from Proto-Germanic *-inassuz. This suffix was formed already in Proto-Germanic by false division of the final consonant *-n- of the preceding stem + the actual suffix *-assuz. The latter was in turn derived from an earlier *-at(s)-tuz, from the verbal suffix *-at-janą + the noun suffix *-þuz. Compare German -nis and Dutch -nis of the same origin.
More for "-ness"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.