Seriousness

How to spell seriousness

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce seriousness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does seriousness mean?

1. nounThe quality of being grave, earnest, or important rather than trivial or playful.

Seriousness in a sentence

• The doctor explained the seriousness of the diagnosis in plain terms.

• Her calm tone failed to convey the seriousness of the financial warning.

Where does seriousness come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word builds on 'serious', which English took from the Old French 'serieux' in the fifteenth century, itself derived from the Late Latin 'seriosus' and ultimately the classical Latin adjective 'serius', meaning 'grave', 'weighty', or 'earnest'. The Latin root carried the idea of something heavy in importance rather than playful, the opposite of light or trivial. To this adjective English added its own native suffix '-ness', a thoroughly Germanic ending used since Old English to turn a quality into an abstract noun, as in 'kindness' and 'darkness'. So the word is a hybrid: a Latin-rooted adjective fitted with an English suffix, a pattern that produced thousands of such nouns. The spelling trap lies in the join: the adjective already ends in 's', and adding '-ness' creates a doubled 's' in the middle (serious + ness), which writers sometimes reduce to one.

How the word is built

• serious (from Latin serius: grave, earnest)
• -ness (noun suffix forming a state or quality)