Rihtwisnes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being morally upright, just and free from sin, as the term was written in Old English texts
2. Moral correctness and virtuous conduct, the state of living in accordance with what is right and just
3. Justice and uprightness of character, an archaic spelling of the virtue of acting rightly before God and others

Etymology: Rihtwisnes is an Old English noun meaning "righteousness" or "justice," built from "riht" ("right, just, straight") and the suffix "-nes," which turned adjectives into abstract nouns, much as "-ness" does today. The pairing is ancient: "-nes" is the same suffix found in "goodness" (Old English "gōdnes") and "darkness" (Old English "deorcnes"), so the formation reads plainly as "rightness" or "the state of being just." The word is also a useful witness to how English spelling changed after the Norman Conquest. Scribes in the Old English period wrote the sounds they heard, and the "ht" cluster in "riht" was pronounced with a hard, throaty "h" that later faded, leaving "right" with a silent gh spelling. Middle English forms show the same wobble, with "rightwisnes" and "rightwisness" appearing in manuscripts before the spelling settled. Modern English dropped this compound in favour of "righteousness," which uses the same "right" and "-ness" elements but a spelling closer to the later standard. The older form survives mainly in historical texts and editions of Old and Middle English.