Dictionary

waywardness en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /ˈweɪ.wə(ɹ)d.nəs/

Etymology

Etymology tree English wayward 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 waywardness From wayward + -ness.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The state or quality of being wayward.
   • He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness. 1820 March 5, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number VI, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC, pages 108–109:
   • Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an April breeze, which spends its time in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take it to your bosom; […] 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter XV, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
   • The merest waywardness in a robotic picker can tangle up the whole shed’s operations and delay thousands of deliveries. 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian:

Forms