Fonnednesse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Silly behaviour or thinking that shows a lack of good sense, as recorded in Middle English writing
2. The quality of being foolish, or an instance of acting without wisdom or judgement
3. Unwise conduct or a foolish state of mind, a term used in older English texts

Etymology: Middle English speakers had a word for foolishness that was itself a little foolish-sounding: "fonnednesse" was built from "fonned," the past participle of the verb "fonnen," meaning to act like a fool, plus the suffix "-nesse," the ancestor of modern "-ness." Its root is probably the noun "fon," an old word for a fool, though the exact origin of "fon" is uncertain. The pattern is simple: a verb about foolish behaviour, turned into a noun for the state of being foolish. The noun is recorded in Middle English, but it never became part of the standard modern vocabulary. Its survival depends on the surviving texts, and it went out of use while more familiar words such as "folly" and "foolishness" took over. It is a compound of a verb participle and a suffix, so its history is mostly a matter of how those two parts combined.