KINDLINESS

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does kindliness mean? 

• KINDLINESS (noun)
  The noun KINDLINESS has 1 sense:

1. friendliness evidence by a kindly and helpful disposition

  Familiarity information: KINDLINESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• KINDLINESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Friendliness evidence by a kindly and helpful disposition

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

helpfulness; kindliness

Hypernyms ("kindliness" is a kind of...):

friendliness (a friendly disposition)

Derivation:

kindly (showing or motivated by sympathy and understanding and generosity)

 Context examples 

They seemed to share the kindliness and largeness of John Thornton.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

This was no soil for kindliness and affection to blossom in.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him justice, upon the side of kindliness.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He could not re-thumb himself in a day, nor could he violate the intrinsic kindliness of his nature; so, at such moments, he smiled at the girls in warm human friendliness.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"Nay," old Ebbits interposed in kindliness, "the white man's is not a lying people. The white man speaks true. Always does the white man speak true." He paused, casting about him for words wherewith to temper the severity of what he was about to say. "But the white man speaks true in different ways. To-day he speaks true one way, to-morrow he speaks true another way, and there is no understanding him nor his way."

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

My father had risen to depart, but the admiral, with that kindliness which he ever showed to the young, and which had been momentarily chilled by the unfortunate splendour of my clothes, still paced up and down in front of us, shooting out crisp little sentences of exhortation and advice.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I do not know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his services.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)