woodenness

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noun

The state of being wooden (often in a figurative sense).

Scrabble 14
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Meanings

nounwoodenness (usually uncountable, plural woodennesses)

plural woodennesses

  1. uncountableusuallyThe state of being wooden (often in a figurative sense).

    […] Marigold’s smile faded into woodenness […]

    1917, William John Locke, chapter 5, in The Red Planet
    2 more examples

    There is hardly a house but is divided against itself, for our foe is the all but universal woodenness of both head and heart, the want of vitality in man, which is the effect of our vice; and hence are begotten fear, superstition, bigotry, persecution, and slavery of all kinds.

    1859, Henry David Thoreau, A Plea for Captain John Brown

    What of him then? If no woman has yet detected, behind his woodenness, his clenched grimness, any flicker of the sacred fire […]

    2002, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 8, in Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II, London: Vintage, published 2003, pages 66–67

Origin

From wooden + -ness.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

woodenness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woodenness

MLA

“woodenness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woodenness. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “woodenness,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woodenness.

Source: woodenness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.