Wydnesse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The measure of how far something extends from one side to the other, an archaic term for width or breadth
2. Archaic word for the extent of a thing across its horizontal dimension, meaning how broad it is from edge to edge
3. The quality of being broad or spacious, referring to the distance across something from one side to its opposite

Etymology: "Wydnesse" is the Middle English form of what we now call "width," and it was built on the adjective "wide" by adding the noun suffix "-nesse," the ancestor of modern "-ness." Old English had "wīdnes" with the same sense, formed from "wīd" (broad, extensive) plus the suffix "-nes," which turned adjectives into nouns of quality, as in "goodness" and "darkness." The spelling "wydnesse" reflects the Middle English period, when "y" and "i" were often interchangeable and the final "-e" was still pronounced. Over the following centuries the word shortened to "width," probably by analogy with "breadth" and other nouns that dropped the suffix, while "wideness" survived as the regular formation. "Wydnesse" itself is no longer in common use and appears mainly in older texts and glossaries.