moroseness

morose +‎ -ness

moroseness (usually uncountable, plural morosenesses)

1. Gloominess; sullenness; deep sadness.
   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:

     He acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintance.

   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 217:

     With the typical moroseness of a dipping twitcher he turned to me, looking cynically at my spotlight, and said, `I don't like your chances, mate.'

• morosity

• moroseness in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
• “moroseness”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “moroseness”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.