Noisiness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The condition of emitting a high level of sound or disturbance
2. A characteristic involving loudness or excessive auditory disruption
3. The quality of generating abundant or intrusive noise

Etymology: "Noisiness" is a plain formation: the adjective "noisy" with the suffix "-ness," which turns an adjective into a noun meaning "the state or quality of being" that adjective. The adjective is itself older than the suffix's English life, having developed in Middle English from the Old French-derived noun "noise," which in turn came from Latin "nausea" through a sense of "din" or "outcry." The suffix "-ness" traces back through Old English "-nes" to a Proto-Germanic root meaning roughly "condition of," so "noisiness" is a pairing of a Germanic ending with a word whose own story began as a term for seasickness. The sense of "noise" as sound broke away from the older meaning of "nausea" only gradually, and by the time "noisy" was formed the word had settled into describing loud, disorderly sound. "Noisiness" therefore describes a quality in things and people alike: a room can have noisiness, and so can a stubborn argument, though the word itself stays close to its literal sense of sound.

Synonyms: loudness, cacophony

Antonyms: quietness, silence