Purenesses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality or state of being free from any contamination or impurities
2. The condition of being clean and untainted, often applied to substances or moral values
3. An attribute describing the inherent clarity and unblemished nature of something, including both physical and ethical dimensions

Etymology: "Purenesses" is the plural of "pureness," and it is a form readers rarely meet outside dictionaries. "Pureness" is "pure" with the suffix "-ness," which English has attached to adjectives since Old English to turn a quality into a noun, as in "kindness" or "darkness." The base, "pure," came into Middle English from Old French "pur," which descends from Latin "purus," meaning clean, unmixed or free of dirt. That Latin sense of physical cleanliness is the root of the moral sense the word carries today. The plural "purenesses" simply counts separate instances or kinds of the quality, so it implies several distinct states of being pure rather than one abstract quality. Because "-ness" nouns are formed freely from almost any adjective, the plural is grammatically possible but rare in actual use.

Synonyms: clarity, cleanliness, freshness

Antonyms: impurity, taint, corruption