The story
- Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*kōlinassī
- Old English · inherited fromcōlnes
- Middle English · inherited fromcolnes
- English todaycoolness
From Middle English colnes, colnesse, from Old English cōlnes, cœ̄lnes, cēlnes (“coolness; cool air, breeze”), from Proto-West Germanic *kōlinassī, equivalent to cool + -ness. Cognate with Middle High German kuolnisse, küelnisse (“cooling, coolness”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.