Complicitousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state of being involved with another person in wrongdoing or of sharing responsibility for an unethical or illegal act
2. The quality of being actively involved in a wrongdoing alongside another, indicating shared accountability for unethical or illegal actions
3. The condition of participating in or being associated with another's immoral or illegal behavior, thus bearing joint responsibility

Etymology: "Complicitousness" is a plain English formation: the adjective "complicitous," meaning involved with someone else's wrongdoing, with the suffix "-ness" attached to turn it into a noun for the state or condition. The suffix itself has a long pedigree. "-ness" descends from an Old English noun-forming ending, "-nes," which was used to build abstract nouns from adjectives, so English speakers have been making words like "goodness" and "darkness" with it for well over a thousand years. The adjective underneath, "complicitous," is the more recent piece, built on the noun "complicity," which signals partnership in a wrongdoing. Because the base is itself a formation on top of older parts, "complicitousness" sits at the end of a chain: a root, a derived adjective, and then a suffix that turns a quality into a thing you can name.