Rewefulnesse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Archaic term for tender pity or sorrowful compassion felt toward someone who is suffering
2. An old word for the grief and compassion one feels when witnessing another person's distress
3. Medieval English term describing a mournful pity that moves a person to sympathy for others

Etymology: Middle English "rewefulnesse" is a form of the word "ruthfulness," and its history runs through the Old English verb "hreowan," meaning "to feel sorrow or regret." Before it described compassion, the root carried the sense of repentance and grief over something one had done, and that older meaning still shows in the modern word "rue," as in ruing a decision. The "-ful" and "-ness" endings are both native English: "-ful" adds the sense of being full of a quality, and "-nesse" turns the adjective "rewful" into a noun for the state of being that way. The adjective "rewful" was formed on the same base, so the noun was the natural result once English speakers wanted a name for the quality itself. Its appearance in Middle English texts marks a period when "ruth," meaning pity, was widely used alongside it, and the noun simply put that pity into a concrete form.