Bushiness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The condition characterized by a thick, luxuriant growth of vegetation or hair signifies an abundance and density often likened to shrubs or unkempt hair
2. This quality reflects a dense, flourishing aspect of flora or overly hairy traits, commonly found in both plants and animals
3. The state of having a thick, tangled mass of growth in plants or hair indicates a lushness and wildness often associated with untamed natural settings or untrimmed hairstyles

Etymology: "Bushiness" is a plain formation: the adjective "bushy" with the suffix "-ness," which turns an adjective into a noun for a quality or state. The root, "bush," is an ancient English word for a shrub or a thick clump of plants, and "bushy" built on it to describe anything that grows thickly, whether a hedge, a tail, or a head of hair. The suffix does the real work here. "-ness" attaches to adjectives throughout English, so "bushy" becomes "bushiness" in the same way "happy" becomes "happiness." Its ancestor in Old English was a suffix used the same way, so the word is built from native English materials at every step rather than borrowed from another language.

Synonyms: thickness, bush, fuzziness, density, foliage

Antonyms: baldness, emptiness, thinness, sparsity, bare