Commandingness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The characteristic of possessing authority and commanding respect through presence or manner
2. The state of appearing powerful and influential, demanding attention or obedience
3. The attribute of having a strong and assertive bearing that inspires compliance or admiration

Etymology: "Commandingness" is a plain English compound: the adjective "commanding" with the suffix "-ness," which turns an adjective into a noun for a quality or state. The adjective itself comes from the verb "command," borrowed into English from Old French "comander," which descends from Latin "commendare," a verb meaning to entrust or recommend to someone's care. The sense of ordering someone about developed later, so the root idea is closer to handing something over than to issuing orders. The suffix has a longer ancestry. "-ness" descends from Old English "-nes," a noun-forming ending found across the Germanic languages, and it has been attached to native and borrowed adjectives alike for more than a thousand years. Its pattern is so productive that new formations like this one can be made freely whenever a speaker wants to name the quality an adjective describes.

Synonyms: authority, dominance, control, leadership, command

Antonyms: submissiveness, subordination, inferiority, powerlessness, weakness