elmness

English

Etymology

elm +‎ -ness

Noun

elmness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being an elm tree.
   • 1979, December 13, New Scientist, Vol. 84, No. 1185, page 895:

     We seem to have become similarly obsessed, abandoning particular, familiar trees in favour of a kind of abstract notion of elmness.

   • 1983, Tom Vernon, Fat Man on a Roman Road: A Bicycle Exploration of Britain, page 129:

     They were spectral, with all vestige of elmness leached back to the soil by the winter rains: twigs and bark gone from each one, leaving only a pale and spiky skeleton.

   • 2004, François Gallix, Vanessa Guignery, Crime Fictions: Subverted Codes and New Structures, page 2:

     The rational detective, of course, is not prepared to bow before oakness and elmness.

   • 2007, Madhumita Chattopadhyay, Walking Along The Paths Of Buddhist Epistemology, page 171:

     This is because, when we infer the absence of smoke from the non-apprehension of fire or the absence of elmness from the non-apprehension of tree, we not only prove the negative activities concerning them, but also the absence itself.

Anagrams

• Nelmses