Dombenesse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state of being unable or unwilling to speak, a silence kept by someone who says nothing
2. Lack of speech or voice, the quality of remaining quiet and saying nothing at all
3. Wordless quietness, an inability to utter sound, as recorded in older English writing

Etymology: "Dombenesse" is a Middle English noun meaning "dumbness" or "lack of speech," and it's built from two parts that were both in common use in the period. The first part is "dumb," from Old English "dumb," meaning mute or unable to speak. The second is the suffix "-nesse," from Old English "-nes" (also "-nys"), which turned adjectives into nouns of state or quality, as in "goodness" or "darkness." Put together, the word named the condition of being unable to speak. The spelling reflects the period it was written in. Middle English scribes wrote "-nesse" with a final "e" that marked the noun's form, and the word appears in texts from roughly the 14th and 15th centuries, when English was still finding its written forms after centuries of variation. Compounds like this were a normal way of making new nouns, so "dombenesse" needed no special coinage: anyone who knew "dumb" and "-ness" could have understood it at once.

Synonyms: silence, muteness, dumbness

Antonyms: speech, loquacity, eloquence