interiority

British  

/ ɪnˌtɪərɪˈɒrɪtɪ /

noun

1. the quality of being focused on one's inner life and identity

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Explanation

Interiority is a characteristic of being private, inward, or introspective. A writer can convey her characters' interiority by describing their innermost thoughts. The interiority of a person is their quality of being focused on their own inner nature or musings. Certain things are so personal that they carry their own sense of interiority — think of the emotion of love or the faith of a religious believer. You can also use this word to mean "inside" or "protected from the outside," like when you admire the interiority of an enclosed courtyard that's sheltered from the busy city around it.

Example Sentences

But Gyllenhaal conveys little of that interiority, letting the screenplay do all of the heavy lifting.

From Salon • May 27, 2026

Her biting and formally audacious narratives examine class, politics and — a speciality — the interiority of women through enigmatic portraits of psychologically complex individuals.

From Los Angeles Times • May 6, 2026

But there’s little interiority between these two reactions, no sense of what John himself is thinking at any moment.

From Salon • Apr. 26, 2026

Early sections, with their displays of his strength and swagger, give way to a fractured interiority.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

There is an irreducible antithesis between affective imagination, the characteristic of which is interiority, and visual imagination, basically objective.

From Essay on the Creative Imagination by Baron, Albert Heyem Nachmen