Unforgettableness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being so memorable or striking that it cannot be forgotten or removed from memory
2. The characteristic of being remarkably distinctive or impressive enough to remain permanently in one's mind
3. The state or property of being indelible in memory, resistant to being forgotten despite the passage of time

Etymology: "Unforgettableness" is simply "unforgettable" with the suffix "-ness" added to turn the adjective into a noun for the quality it describes. "Unforgettable" itself combines the prefix "un-", meaning "not", with "forgettable", from "forget," so the whole chain reads as "the state of not being able to be forgotten." The suffix "-ness" is one of English's oldest and most productive noun-forming endings, descended from Old English "-nes(s)" and attached to adjectives since the earliest period of the language. Its job is straightforward: "kind" becomes "kindness," "sad" becomes "sadness," and "unforgettable" becomes "unforgettableness." Because it can be attached to almost any adjective, it produces forms like this one whenever a writer needs to speak abstractly about a quality rather than the thing that has it. Few people reach for "unforgettableness" in ordinary speech, since "unforgettability" is the more common noun for the same idea. The longer "-ness" form is most often found in older or more deliberately formal writing, where it sounds weightier than its alternative.

Synonyms: unforgettability