Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The state or an instance of being quiet or calm: "The stillness that permeates the valleys is visual as well as acoustical” ( Barry Lopez).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The state or character of being still. Rest; motionlessness; calmness: as, the stillness of the air or of the sea.
Wiktionary
- n. The quality or state of being still; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity.
- n. Habitual silence or quiet; taciturnity.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being still; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity.
- n. Habitual silence or quiet; taciturnity.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a state of no motion or movement
- n. (poetic) tranquil silence
- n. calmness without winds
Etymologies
- From Middle English stilnesse, from Old English stilnes ("stillness, quiet; absence of noise or disturbance, release, relaxation; silence, abstention from speech; absence of disturbance or molestation, tranquility, peace, security; that which appeases"), equivalent to still + -ness. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The men were still exquisite, postured with their arms draped over their heads in stillness or lunging and leaping in wild fits as the Tchaikovsky score crescendoed.”
The Huffington Post: Susan Eley: Hooters to Swan Lake During One Week in New York
“Alert stillness is needed, as the harvest comes to fruition, and to become aware of God's created beauty, the majesty, the sacredness of nature, as He saw fit to create with His hands.”
“Is there a fundamental discrepancy between the ideals of Daoismlike being rooted in stillness and emptinessand the characteristics needed for political leadership?”
“They are easy to control when stillness is required in the duck blind and have a good eye for marking and remembering where birds fall.”
“They sat a good while in stillness after that, each thinking her own thoughts; or perhaps those of the elder lady took the form of prayers.”
“So I felt sorry for her, people passing her on the sidewalk like she was a manikin who needed a life but all she got was stillness, which is a form of nothing.”
Fictionaut: Unaswered E-mails Over a Cup of Coffee and a Microwaved Danish
“There are several pathways that help us enhance our awareness, but one very effective way is through mindfulness meditation, which may seem paradoxical, as it emphasizes sitting in stillness.”
The Huffington Post: Ronald Alexander, Ph.D.: Expand Your Consciousness with Meditation (VIDEO)
“With each cup of tea, deftly prepared, there comes a moment of pause, of stillness, that is otherwise absent from the day.”
The Huffington Post: Gemma de Choisy: Confessions of a Dual Citizen
“I meditate, not to achieve happiness, but to enter into the silence and stillness, which is a welcome respite from the outer "noise" of living.”
The Huffington Post: Dr. Judith Rich: Happiness Is Overrated
“It has a kind of quietness to it, a stillness, that is, well, Zen-like.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘stillness’.
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dickinsonian
psalteries, enamoring, estates, whim, calyx, hoisted, nought, pentateuchal, retina, obviated, revelation, stalactite and 193 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
Words Covered in Faery Dust (S)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
sabian symbols, saffron, sagacious, sage, salamander, sally lunn, salmon, salsify, salt water taffy, samhain, sand dollar, sandalwood and 270 more...
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Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
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Theme Prompts
There's a fiction meme (mostly on Livejournal) where writers use words as a prompt for a short story snippet. I've been collecting the words that show up on these lists as prompts for creative writ...
white, black, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet, queen, king, prince and 407 more...
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miscellany
preposterous, minimalism, outnumbered, subroutine, malinger, oddity, eccentricity, laughable, oxymoronic, interstellar, winter, heedless and 335 more...
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EROTICA
thrust, cock, sweat, erotic, porn, penetrate, lust, force, rape, hard, cum, climax and 73 more...
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courtneysue75's Words
snickerdoodle, crisp, sparkle, serendipity, buttery, dramatic, flit, zip, thwack, monkey, butterscotch, thrilling and 26 more...
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brink007's list
Pretty words.
torrent, breeze, dance, reticent, silence, cadence, harmony, sunlight, lily, violet, rose, briar and 33 more...
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McNamarian Vocab
William McNamara, O.C.D. presents the spirituality of "the word made flesh"
embody, enflesh, howl, amplitude, cocreators, fragmented, estranged, resounds, parousia, resonates, enfleshment, entrusted and 26 more...
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Key words for Transmodernism
I have begun to explore the spirtit, anatomy and morphology of transmodernism, an emerginging global paradigm that is supplanting post-modernism. This is the list of key words that I believe help u...
depth, leaderless, inclusionality, transparency, contiguous, liminal, stillness, engageable, singularity, littoral, raillery
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Writing Prompts
I spent ages looking for some, so I decided to add my own and some that I found
indifference, silence, stillness, echo, hurt, masquerade, tragedy, reality, dream, maelstrom, dark, phantasmaphobia and 7 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for stillness.
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