Ellipticalness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being shaped like an ellipse ; the characteristic of expressing ideas in a concise or obscure manner ; the state of having a form or motion that resembles an elongated circle
2. The condition of having an oval or elongated circular shape ; the tendency to communicate in a way that omits some details or is indirect ; the attribute of moving or existing in an elliptical path or pattern
3. The property of exhibiting a smooth, flattened circular outline ; the mode of conveying concepts briefly or with deliberate ambiguity ; the feature of following or resembling an oval trajectory or contour

Etymology: "Ellipticalness" is a plain compound: the adjective "elliptical" with the suffix "-ness" added to turn it into a noun for the quality of being that thing. "Elliptical" itself comes from "ellipse," a curve whose name traces back to the Greek "elleipsis," meaning a falling short or a deficiency, a sense that describes how the curve is related to a circle. The suffix "-ness" is one of English's oldest and most productive noun-forming endings. It attaches to adjectives across the language, so "happy" becomes "happiness" and "dark" becomes "darkness," and in the same way "elliptical" yields a term for the state of having an elliptical form. Because it is built on demand from a known adjective, the noun carries no hidden twist of meaning: it simply names the quality an object has when it is shaped like an oval.

Synonyms: ovalness, ellipticity, oval shape, roundedness, elliptic form

Antonyms: circularity, roundness, sphericity