flagitiousness

/fləˈdʒɪʃəsnəs/

flagitiousness means the state or quality of being flagitious; wickedness, infamy. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

flagitiousness is pronounced /fləˈdʒɪʃəsnəs/.

Why “flagitiousness” is a great word

Flagitiousness is the condition of being monstrously wicked, marked by shocking and scandalous criminal depravity. Its etymology is from the English adjective flagitious (meaning 'wicked, criminal') + the suffix -ness (forming abstract nouns). The adjective flagitious derives from the Latin flāgitiōsus, from flāgitium ('shameful crime, disgrace'). Unlike 'iniquity,' which suggests a violation of divine law tinged with unfairness, or 'turpitude,' a more clinical term for inherent baseness, flagitiousness is wickedness that clamors for public infamy. It is the cold architecture of a calculated atrocity, the smug defiance in the eyes of a traitor who betrays for sport, the particular silence that follows a crime so heinous it steals the breath from condemnation—a corruption so complete it stains the very air, a reminder that some evils are not merely wrong, but spectacularly, shamelessly so.

Etymology

From flagitious + -ness.

noun

The state or quality of being flagitious; wickedness, infamy.“Anſelm calls a Synod at St. Paul’s, where was this Statute made; We condemn this Sodomitical Flagitiouſneſs in any, and thoſe that aſſiſt them, with a heavy Anathema.”