aliveness

English

Etymology

alive +‎ -ness

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈlaɪvnəs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Noun

aliveness (usually uncountable, plural alivenesses)

1. The state of being alive; exuberance, intensity.

   the aliveness of the colours in a painting

   • 1917, Winston Churchill, The Dwelling-Place of Light, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company:

     […] she's such a perplexing mixture of old New England and modernity, of a fatalism, and an aliveness that fairly vibrates.

   • 1920 September, Jack London, chapter 18, in Hearts of Three, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, page 231:

     […] her eyes betrayed a complicated totality of paradoxical alivenesses.

   • 1944, Emily Carr, “Beacon Hill”, in The House of All Sorts:

     Sea-water wet their feet, wind tossed their hair, excitement quivered in every fibre of their aliveness.

Anagrams

• leaviness, vaselines