Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

unkindliness en · NOUN

Etymology

From Middle English wnkyndlynes (“unnatural hostility or wickedness”); equivalent to unkindly + -ness.

Meanings

  1. (dated, uncountable) Unkindness.
    • Lord Walderhurst gazed at her through the monocle with an air he sometimes had of taking her measure without either unkindliness or particular interest. 1909, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Emily Fox-Seton:
  2. (archaic, uncountable) Unfavourableness.
    • Luxury did not spoil her; and any one that saw her in the soft furs of her winter wrappings, would have said that delicate cheek and frame were never made to know the unkindliness of harsher things. 1854, Elizabeth Wetherell, Queechy, Volume I:
  3. (obsolete, uncountable) Unnaturalness.