itness

English

Etymology

From it +‎ -ness.

Noun

itness (uncountable)

1. Existence as a particular (type of) thing with particular qualities.
   • 1991, Barbara Freedman, Staging the Gaze:

     Theatricality is foregrounded in the simple moment of pointing to an absence, as in the mask that points to itself as it advances. In this moment the itness of the I shows itself as what it is not in the act of self-reference.

   • 1992, Stanley Cohen, Laurie Taylor, Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Life:

     This script declares: the universe is so right as to need no justification, existence is no longer a problem because of the 'itness' of everything, the whole world had become your own body […]

   • 2012, Cindy Weinstein, Christopher Looby, American Literature's Aesthetic Dimensions, page 285:

     The beauty of the book is in the book, in its itness and in the itness of the author who, in looking through is also seen in the pane, the lens, on which she leaves her own print.

Related terms

• stick-to-itness

See also

• thingness

Anagrams

• insets, sets in, sients, snites, steins