Kindness

How to spell kindness

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce kindness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does kindness mean?

1. nounThe quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate toward others.

Kindness in a sentence

• The nurse treated every patient with great kindness.

• A small act of kindness can change someone's whole day.

Where does kindness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English root 'cynd' or 'gecynd', meaning 'nature' or 'natural disposition', the same ancestor that gives us the adjective 'kind' and the noun 'kin' for one's relatives. The early sense linked being 'kind' to behaving as members of the same family naturally should, treating others as kin. By the Middle English period the adjective 'kind' had settled into its modern meaning of gentle and considerate, and adding the native Germanic suffix '-ness' turned it into an abstract noun for the quality of being kind. The '-ness' ending has been used to build such nouns since Anglo-Saxon times, so 'kindness' is a thoroughly home-grown English word rather than a borrowing. Because the suffix simply attaches to the whole adjective, the spelling keeps both the 'd' of 'kind' and the double 's' of '-ness', which is the only real point to watch.

How the word is built

• kind (good-natured, friendly)
• -ness (noun suffix forming a state or quality)