Inhabitedness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state or quality of being occupied by people, animals, or living organisms ; the condition of a place where life is present and sustained ; the characteristic of supporting or containing populations or residents
2. A condition indicating the presence of dwellers, creatures, or life forms in a certain area ; the attribute of having a space filled with entities that reside or dwell ; the aspect of a location that is continuously used or populated by living beings
3. The measure of a location's occupancy by living inhabitants ; the aspect of a place demonstrating active residence or continual living presence ; the property of a site showing that it supports life or has been settled by beings over time

Etymology: "Inhabitedness" is a plain formation: the adjective "inhabited" with the suffix "-ness" added to turn it into a noun naming a state or quality. "Inhabited" itself comes from "inhabit," which goes back through Old French "inhabiter" to the Latin "inhabitare," meaning "to dwell in," built from "in" and "habitare," "to live or dwell." The suffix "-ness" is one of English's oldest and most productive noun-makers, descending from Old English "-nes(s)," and it has long been attached to participial adjectives like "inhabited" to name an abstract condition. So the word means, in effect, "the quality of being inhabited." Its meaning is transparent from its parts, which is why it is rarely found in dictionaries outside those that list words by formation.

Synonyms: occupancy, residency, population, settlement, tenancy

Antonyms: vacancy, emptiness, desolation, abandonment, uninhabitedness