WHITENESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does whiteness mean? 

• WHITENESS (noun)
  The noun WHITENESS has 3 senses:

1. the quality or state of the achromatic color of greatest lightness (bearing the least resemblance to black)

2. the state of being unsullied by sin or moral wrong; lacking a knowledge of evil

3. lightness or fairness of complexion

  Familiarity information: WHITENESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WHITENESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality or state of the achromatic color of greatest lightness (bearing the least resemblance to black)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

white; whiteness

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

achromatic color; achromatic colour (a color lacking hue; white or grey or black)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "whiteness"):

alabaster (a very light white)

bleach (the whiteness that results from removing the color from something)

bone; ivory; off-white; pearl (a shade of white the color of bleached bones)

chalk (a pure flat white with little reflectance)

frostiness; hoariness (a silvery-white color)

Derivation:

white (being of the achromatic color of maximum lightness; having little or no hue owing to reflection of almost all incident light)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The state of being unsullied by sin or moral wrong; lacking a knowledge of evil

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

innocence; pureness; purity; sinlessness; whiteness

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

condition; status (a state at a particular time)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "whiteness"):

cleanness (without moral defects)

Derivation:

white (free from moral blemish or impurity; unsullied)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Lightness or fairness of complexion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

only the whiteness of her cheeks gave any indication of the stress from which she was suffering

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

complexion; skin color; skin colour (the coloring of a person's face)

 Context examples 

Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Came days of storm, days and nights of storm, when the ocean menaced us with its roaring whiteness, and the wind smote our struggling boat with a Titan’s buffets.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Then her husband turned to her wan-eyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked:—And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He took up all my clothes in his pastern, one piece after another, and examined them diligently; he then stroked my body very gently, and looked round me several times; after which, he said, it was plain I must be a perfect Yahoo; but that I differed very much from the rest of my species in the softness, whiteness, and smoothness of my skin; my want of hair in several parts of my body; the shape and shortness of my claws behind and before; and my affectation of walking continually on my two hinder feet.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her girdle.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)