Libidinousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being driven by intense sexual desire or showing excessive lustful behavior
2. The state of being dominated by excessive sexual desire or characterized by unrestrained carnal impulses
3. A tendency toward intense lustful preoccupation manifested through behavior driven by overwhelming erotic inclination

Etymology: Libidinousness is a straightforward formation: the adjective "libidinous" with the suffix "-ness", which turns an adjective into a noun for a quality or state. The suffix has a long pedigree of its own. It descends from Old English "-nes", which traces back through Proto-Germanic to forms of the Indo-European root for a suffix used to make abstract nouns, and it has been a productive way of building English nouns ever since. Attaching it to "libidinous" gives a noun naming the quality of being given over to strong sexual desire. The adjective it rests on comes from "libido", a Latin noun meaning desire, wish or lust. Latin "libido" grew from "libet", "it pleases", so the root idea is something pleasing or wished for. English took "libido" into the language as a technical term, and "libidinous" was later formed from it on the Latin model. The noun "libidinousness" therefore carries that older sense of appetite rather than any everyday meaning of pleasure.

Synonyms: lustfulness, lewdness, salaciousness, debauchery, sensuality

Antonyms: modesty, chastity, purity, innocence, self-restraint