Synonymousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state of two or more terms sharing identical meanings or interpretations
2. The characteristic of words or phrases being able to replace each other without altering the intended meaning
3. The quality or condition where different words or phrases convey exactly the same meaning

Etymology: "Synonymousness" is about as plain as English word-building gets: it is "synonymous" with the suffix "-ness" added to the end. "Synonymous" itself comes from Greek "synonymos," built from "syn-" meaning "together, same" and "onyma," meaning "name." Two words that share a name, in the sense of meaning the same thing, are synonyms, and "synonymous" describes that relationship. The suffix "-ness" is the old Germanic ending that turns an adjective into a noun for a quality or state, as in "kindness" from "kind" or "darkness" from "dark." Attaching it to "synonymous" gives a noun for the condition of being synonymous, which is the sameness of meaning between words. The result is a formation that English speakers could build freely from any adjective, so the word is a transparent piece of ordinary word-building rather than a term with a dramatic backstory.

Synonyms: similarity, equivalence

Antonyms: difference, dissimilarity