Holiness

How to spell holiness

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce holiness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does holiness mean?

1. nounThe quality or state of being sacred, morally pure, or set apart for religious devotion.

Holiness in a sentence

• The old chapel was valued for its sense of quiet holiness.

• Pilgrims travelled there seeking a feeling of holiness and peace.

Where does holiness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English haligness, a compound of halig, meaning 'holy' or 'sacred', and the noun-forming suffix -nes, which turns an adjective into the name of a quality. The root halig is itself thought to be related to hal, the source of 'whole' and 'hale', carrying an old sense of something unbroken, sound, or set apart as inviolable. As the language moved from Old English into Middle English, the adjective settled into 'holy' and the abstract noun followed it, with the final y of holy shifting to i before -ness, which is exactly the spelling step that trips people up. By the medieval period the word also served as a respectful title for high churchmen, a use that survives today in 'His Holiness' for the Pope. The whole family is purely native Germanic, with no Latin or French borrowing involved, so the plain -ness ending is a reliable guide rather than a foreign trap.

How the word is built

• holy (from Old English halig: sacred)
• -ness (noun-forming suffix; the y of holy becomes i before the suffix)