Rapidness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality that denotes extreme swiftness or quickness in actions or events
2. The condition of occurring or moving with great speed
3. The characteristic of doing something at a high rate of motion

Etymology: "Rapidness" is a plain formation: the adjective "rapid" with the suffix "-ness," which English has attached to adjectives since Old English to turn a quality into a noun. The adjective itself came into English in the 1600s from French, which had taken it from Latin "rapidus," meaning "seizing" or "swift," built from "rapere," "to seize or snatch." So the sense of speed is already in the root: something rapid is something that is hurried along, carried off quickly. The "-ness" element is the more ordinary part of the story. Its ancestor was an Old English suffix, "-nes," that formed abstract nouns from adjectives and is the same ending found in "darkness" or "goodness." Once "rapid" was established, speakers could form "rapidness" from it directly, and the noun names the quality of moving swiftly. In practice, English usually prefers "rapidity" for this sense, which came from the same Latin adjective through French, so "rapidness" is the more transparent, homemade-sounding of the two.

Synonyms: quickness, speed, swiftness, hastiness, promptness

Antonyms: slowness, delays, laziness, lethargy, gradualness