Voidness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The condition of lacking substance or meaningful content
2. A sense of emptiness and emptiness, often reflected in existential thought
3. The state of having no contents or filling and lacking any material presence

Etymology: "Voidness" is a plain compound: the adjective "void," meaning empty or lacking contents, with the suffix "-ness," which turns an adjective into a noun for a state or quality. The earlier English form "voidenesse" was built the same way in Middle English, so the word's history is essentially the history of its two parts. "Void" itself came into English from Old French "voide," meaning empty, and the suffix "-ness" is native Old English, one of the most productive ways English has long made abstract nouns from adjectives. The word's modern sense, a sense of emptiness, owes more to the adjective than to the suffix. "Void" in older English meant both physically empty space and a lack of something, such as "void of pity," and "voidness" carries that same range into more abstract territory. The existential use is a later extension of that sense rather than a separate meaning built into the word.

Synonyms: emptiness, nullity, vacuum, nothingness, lack

Antonyms: fullness, completeness, abundance, surplus, presence