Bounteousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being generously abundant and liberal in giving or supplying things to others
2. The state of giving or providing with generous abundance and liberal willingness
3. A quality characterized by plentiful generosity and willingness to bestow or supply freely

Etymology: Bounteousness is a plain formation: the adjective "bounteous" with the suffix "-ness" added to turn a quality into a noun. The adjective itself came into English from Old French "bonté," meaning goodness, which descends from Latin "bonitas," so the core idea behind the word is simply goodness, which later narrowed to open-handed giving. The suffix is the older and more native piece. "-ness" traces back through Old English "-nes" to a Proto-Germanic ancestor that was attached to adjectives to name the state of being what they describe, so the word combines a borrowed root with a suffix that has been part of English since its earliest recorded form. The result is a word that reads as a deliberate abstraction. Where "bounteous" describes a generous person or a plentiful harvest, "bounteousness" names the generosity or abundance itself as a thing one can point to. English speakers have long used this pattern, which is why the suffix attaches so readily to hundreds of adjectives, from "kindness" to "eagerness."

Synonyms: generosity, abundance

Antonyms: stinginess, poverty