Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being changeful.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Propensity to change.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of being changeable and variable

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

changeful +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • These Oreads are peculiar: they come upon you with an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening; they inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty is the beauty of spirits: their grace is not the grace of life, but of seasons or scenes in nature: theirs is the dewy bloom of morning - the languid flush of evening - the peace of the moon - the changefulness of clouds.

    Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte 2004

  • And from the three long uncurtained windows the beautiful stretch of meadow and moorland, the far violet of the hills, and the unchanging changefulness of cloud and sky.

    The Railway Children Edith 2003

  • And from the three long uncurtained windows the beautiful stretch of meadow and moorland, the far violet of the hills, and the unchanging changefulness of cloud and sky.

    The Railway Children Edith 2003

  • It came from long brooding on the changefulness of human fortune, of fate and chance, and the folly of counting on anything beyond the moment.

    The Praise Singer Renault, Mary 1978

  • There Thingol Greycloak of Doriath was their king, and in the long twilight their tongue had changed with the changefulness of mortal lands and had become far estranged from the speech of the Eldar from beyond the Sea.

    The Lord of the Rings Tolkien, J. R. R. 1954

  • Its double tints and strange changefulness, and the smooth creamy cheeks with their moving islets of roses that would come and go at a word, were pretty protests of Nature, I used to think, against the demure tints of her pearl-gray silken gown.

    Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876 Various

  • Our ville, so important to us, has scarcely an existence for our home government, and administrative changes there float over us like clouds of heaven, without touching us in their changefulness.

    Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 Various

  • Again, while he has the utmost of moral stability and constancy, and also great firmness of intellectual adhesion to main principles, there is in him a certain minor changefulness.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863 Various

  • A day was coming, and it was the day of reality for which he lived, ever present and ever certain, when this sad world was to put _off for ever_ its changefulness and its misery, and the grave was to be robbed of its victory, and the bodies were to come forth purified by their long sleep.

    Sermons Preached at Brighton Third Series Frederick W. Robertson

  • Taken all together and linked to the assumption -- fundamental in this report -- that the Potomac and its landscape deserve rescue and coordinated right use, these areas of doubt, changefulness, and difficulty add up to a strong body of argument for flexible continuing planning on a Basinwide scale and for a specific, authoritative Potomac

    The Nation's River A report on the Potomac from the U.S. Department of the Interior United States. Dept. of the Interior.

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