Ballednesse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The condition of having little or no hair growing on the top of the head, as found in an older Middle English spelling
2. The state of being hairless on the scalp, a meaning recorded in Middle English texts for a bare or thinning head
3. Lacking hair on the crown of the head, the quality of being bald as described in medieval English writing

Etymology: "Ballednesse" is a Middle English noun meaning baldness, the state of being bald. It is formed from the adjective "balled," itself a variant of "bald," with the suffix "-nesse," which turned an adjective into a noun denoting a quality or condition, much as "-ness" does today. The "-nesse" spelling belongs to the Middle English period, when the suffix was commonly written this way before the modern "-ness" form became standard. The adjective "bald" has an earlier and more surprising story than its current sense suggests. It is probably connected to an Old English or Middle English word for "white" or "shining," and some scholars link it to a sense of "white patch" on the head or on an animal, so the original notion may have been of a visible patch of skin rather than of hair simply missing. This connection remains uncertain, and the exact pathway is debated in standard references.