humanness
Americannoun
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the quality or condition of being human or characteristic of humans.
Loss of intellect, as when a person is severely brain-damaged, does not mean loss of humanness.
It’s an essay on the humanness of language—how it serves as a hallmark distinguishing humankind from other animals.
-
human limitation, weakness, or imperfection.
Employers need to embrace the humanness of their workforce, with all its flaws, frailty, and emotional vulnerability.
In a fitness class, the sheer humanness of feeling awkward and sweating together relaxes relationships.
-
sympathetic, relatable, or humane quality.
The memoir was refreshing in its honesty, vulnerability, and humanness.
Greed can drive people beyond their humanness into great cruelty and inhumanity.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of humanness
First recorded in 1690–1700; human ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )
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.
To surrender such decisions to some putatively wiser entity is, in some essential sense, to surrender our humanness.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 15, 2025
“You feel their humanness, because what’s more human than feeling that you don’t belong?”
From Seattle Times • May 25, 2024
But the soul of the film, the reason why we see ourselves in its greatness, its stillness, its humanness, lies in the chemistry and connection between the two leads Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.
From Salon • Oct. 4, 2023
I don’t think there’s something like an ideal state of authentic humanness, nor do I think that humanness is better than non-humanness.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 23, 2023
They laughed then, uproariously, about the speed with which they had run, the pose they had assumed, the ruse they had invented to escape or decrease some threat to their manliness, their humanness.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
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.
