thingness

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *tenk-?

Proto-Indo-European *tenkóm

Proto-Germanic *þingą

Proto-West Germanic *þing

Old English þing

Middle English thing

English thing

Proto-Germanic *-in-

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti

Proto-Germanic *-ōną

Proto-Germanic *-inōną

Proto-Indo-European *-dyé-

Proto-Germanic *-atjaną

Proto-Indo-European *-tus

Proto-Germanic *-þuz

Proto-Germanic *-assuz

Proto-Germanic *-inassuz

Proto-West Germanic *-nassī

Old English -nes

Middle English -nesse

English -ness

English thingness

From thing + -ness.

Noun

thingness (usually uncountable, plural thingnesses)

1. (philosophy) The quality of a material thing; objectivity; actuality; reality.
   • 1994, Shadia B Drury, Alexandre Kojève [1]

     To live as a thing, to live for another and as the other expects, is to live unauthentically or in bad faith. To be true to oneself, one must reduce others to thingness and resist being so reduced.

   • 1998, William C Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God‎^[2]:

     Whether we dwell in the thingness of fixity or the thingness of wujūd, we are “at” the wujūd of the Real.

   • 2002, Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition‎^[3]:

     The thingness of a thing precedes the conscious perception of its sensual properties.

See also

• thinghood

References

• "thingness", Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, <http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/thingness> [Retrieved January 8, 2005].
• "thingness", Encarta World English Dictionary, <http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861719723> [Retrieved January 8, 2005].
• "thingness", Random House Unabridged Dictionary (1997) <http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/thingness> [Retrieved January 8, 2005].

Anagrams

• se'nnights, sennights