Wrongnesse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being incorrect, mistaken, or not in accordance with fact or truth
2. The state or condition of being erroneous, unsuitable, or contrary to what is right
3. The character or nature of being inaccurate, improper, or deviating from what is correct

Etymology: Before "wrong" meant a moral failing, it described something twisted or bent out of shape. The adjective came into English from Old Norse "rangr," meaning "crooked" or "awry," probably carried in by Scandinavian speakers during the Viking-age settlements in northern and eastern England. Its sense shifted from the physical to the moral over the centuries that followed, so that a thing could be wrong in the way a bent stick is wrong, and then in the way a bad act is. This spelling belongs to Middle English, when the noun was formed by adding the suffix "-nesse" to "wrong." That suffix descends from Old English "-nes," which turned adjectives into abstract nouns, as in "good" to "goodness" or "dark" to "darkness." The final "-e" was a regular feature of Middle English spelling, and it dropped away as the language standardized. Modern English "wrongness" is the same word in its later form, and it has largely been replaced in ordinary use by "wrong" itself, or by "wrongdoing."

Synonyms: wickedness, iniquity, injustice

Antonyms: rightness, correctness, propriety