archness
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of archness
Explanation
Archness is a quality of being cheeky or playful in a way that's almost rude. If your philosophy professor cracks a lot of jokes during her lecture on ethics, you might comment on her archness. If you like romance novels simply to make fun of their silly plots and overblown characters, your archness might offend a friend who actually enjoys the books. When you're arch, you tease in a fake or exaggerated way. The noun archness comes from arch, which meant "chief or principal" in the 1500s but grew by the mid-seventeenth century to have a more derogatory meaning after being a familiar prefix for words like rogue and knave.
Vocabulary lists containing archness
Circe
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Orlando: A Biography
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Society and Solitude
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Now, they are buzzing with memes, videos and messages of congratulation, but also a strain of sceptical archness.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2022
It’s that when she focuses instead on her own writing, and shifts away some from straight-on modern jazz, she also softens the archness and the neatness of her delivery.
From New York Times ● Dec. 17, 2021
If you’re worried that your manner might betray your anxiety, practice adopting a slightly artificial archness of tone, so you have something to focus and distract you.
From Slate ● Sep. 24, 2020
Naturally, I also became familiar with Kenny’s cinematic pet peeves and inevitably adopted a few of them myself: phoniness, archness, empty formalism, nihilistic violence, willfully irritating characters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2020
Despite the archness of his tone—which normally would have irritated me—there was a melancholy undernote in his voice.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
