Harmlessness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality or state of being unable to cause injury, damage, or negative effects
2. A condition in which no threat or danger is posed due to absence of harm-causing ability
3. The characteristic of being safe and without potential to produce harm or adverse outcomes

Etymology: Harmlessness is a plain English compound: the adjective "harmless" with the suffix "-ness" added to turn a quality into a noun. The suffix has a long pedigree. "-ness" descends from an Old English noun ending "-nes", which in turn traces back through Proto-Germanic forms to a very old Indo-European suffix used to make abstract nouns from adjectives. In other words, the ending that turns "harmless" into "harmlessness" is nearly as old as the Germanic languages themselves. The first half, "harmless", is equally transparent. It is built from "harm" with the suffix "-less", meaning "without", so the word simply describes the absence of harm. Because English readily attaches "-ness" to adjectives of this kind, speakers have been able to create "harmlessness" whenever they need to name the quality itself, rather than the thing that possesses it.

Synonyms: innocuousness, safety, benignity

Antonyms: harmfulness, danger, threat