Hotheadedness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state of being prone to quick anger or impulsive actions that lack careful consideration or forethought
2. The disposition to react with anger or act impulsively without assessing potential consequences or reasoning
3. The quality of easily losing temper and making hasty decisions without thoughtful reflection

Etymology: Hotheadedness is a plain compound: "hotheaded" plus the suffix "-ness", which turns an adjective into a noun for a quality or state. The adjective "hotheaded" describes a person whose head is, figuratively, hot, meaning easily angered or rash, and the ending "-ness" comes from Old English "-nes", a suffix that has been attached to native adjectives since the earliest English. Its ancestry runs back through Proto-Germanic forms of the same ending, so the suffix itself is far older than the compound it now forms. The noun therefore names the quality of being hotheaded: a readiness to flare up at slights or provocations, rather than an action or an object. Because "-ness" is productive, English speakers can build such nouns freely from any suitable adjective, and "hotheadedness" is one of many examples where the suffix simply records a temperament as a thing in itself.

Synonyms: impulsiveness, rashness

Antonyms: calmness, serenity