sundayness · noun — the quality of being a Sunday, or like a Sunday. It carries an Arena rating of 1565, earned across 9 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, sundayness ranks #705 of 17,177 for Most Whimsical Words, #2,753 of 17,163 for Most Beautiful Words, #2,790 of 17,201 for Funniest Words, #6,081 of 17,205 for The Improbable.
Why “sundayness” is a great word
The quality or character of a Sunday, especially its distinctive atmosphere of rest, leisure, or quiet solemnity. From Sunday (from Old English sunnandæg, "day of the sun") + -ness (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a state or quality). Unlike "weekdayness," which suggests the forward-rushing current of obligation, or "mundanity," which implies a flat and featureless plain of experience, Sundayness is a deliberate eddy in time's stream. It is the smell of coffee and newsprint lingering in a quiet house, the heavy, sunlit silence of an empty street in the afternoon, and the peculiar melancholy of an evening shadow lengthening across a completed crossword—a secular sabbath, a pocket of stillness woven into the relentless fabric of the week.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From Sunday + -ness.
noun
- The quality of being a Sunday, or like a Sunday.e.g.“The peculiar Sundayness of it. The one thing that took him in revulsion back to England: Sunday dinner. The England he didn't want to be taken back to.” — 1924, D. H. Lawrence, The Boy in the Bush:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
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