Certainness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being assured or confident in a belief or outcome
2. a state of being free from doubt or uncertainty about something
3. the assurance that something is definitively true or valid

Etymology: "Certainness" is simply a formation from "certain" plus the suffix "-ness", which turns an adjective into a noun for a state or quality. The adjective "certain" came into English from Old French "certain", itself from Latin "certus", meaning "decided" or "settled," and that Latin root is the ancestor of "certain" as a word for something fixed and beyond dispute. The suffix does the real work here. "-ness" descends from Old English "-nes(s)", which appeared as a productive way to make abstract nouns from adjectives, so "good" gave "goodness" and "dark" gave "darkness." Its roots reach back to a Proto-Germanic form, and the same suffix sits behind much of the everyday vocabulary of English quality and condition. Because "certainness" is built on the spot from a productive pattern, it is less common than "certainty," which took over the same sense through a different suffix from Latin. Both words mean the condition of being free from doubt, and the difference is largely one of style and frequency rather than meaning.

Synonyms: certainty, assurance, confidence

Antonyms: uncertainty, doubt, ambiguity