harmfulness

English

Etymology tree

English harmful

Proto-Germanic *-in-

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti

Proto-Germanic *-ōną

Proto-Germanic *-inōną

Proto-Indo-European *-dyé-

Proto-Germanic *-atjaną

Proto-Indo-European *-tus

Proto-Germanic *-þuz

Proto-Germanic *-assuz

Proto-Germanic *-inassuz

Proto-West Germanic *-nassī

Old English -nes

Middle English -nesse

English -ness

English harmfulness

From harmful + -ness.

harmfulness (countable and uncountable, plural harmfulnesses)

The characteristic of being harmful.
- 1922, Edith Wharton, chapter 8, in The Glimpses of the Moon:
  Once his word was pledged, he was safe: otherwise there was no limit to his capacity for wilful harmfulness.

the characteristic of being harmful

Noah Webster (1828), “harmfulness”, in An American Dictionary of the English Language: […], volume I (A–I), New York, N.Y.: […] S. Converse; printed by Hezekiah Howe […], →OCLC.
“harmfulness”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.