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nearness

noun

Simple meaning

The state of being near.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

nirnuhs

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈnɪɹnəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The state of being near; closeness; intimacy.

  2. Stinginess.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The state of being near; closeness; intimacy.

Used this way, nearness is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

physical nearnessgreater nearnessrelative nearness

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • nearlyadverbDerived adverb

    Slightly short of or not quite accomplished.

  • neareradverbDerived adverb

    Within a shorter distance.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.