noun ·4 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The state of being restrictive. uncountable
2. 2
   a lack of permissiveness or indulgence and a tendency to confine behavior within certain specified limits wordnet
3. 3
   a grammatical qualification that makes the meaning more specific (‘red hat’ has a more specific meaning than ‘hat’) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

unpermissivenessunpermissiveness

Etymology

From restrictive + -ness.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.