Unhappiness

How to spell unhappiness

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce unhappiness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unhappiness mean?

1. nounThe state of being sad, dissatisfied, or discontented.

Unhappiness in a sentence

• The long commute was a constant source of unhappiness for her.

• His unhappiness at work eventually led him to resign.

Where does unhappiness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from three native English pieces. The core is 'happy', which was formed in the 1300s from the noun 'hap', meaning luck or chance, a word English took from the Old Norse 'happ' with the same sense; so 'happy' originally described someone favoured by good fortune rather than simply cheerful. To this was added the old prefix 'un-', an Anglo-Saxon negator meaning 'not', and the suffix '-ness', also from Old English, which turns an adjective into the name of a state or quality. When 'happy' takes a suffix beginning with a consonant the final 'y' regularly changes to 'i', which is exactly why the spelling is 'unhappiness' rather than 'unhappyness'. The hidden trap is that single, almost silent middle vowel and the doubled 'p' carried over from 'happy', plus the 'i' that replaced the 'y'.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• happi- (from happy, itself from hap: luck, chance)
• -ness (noun-forming suffix)