Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being tearful.

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

  • noun The quality of being tearful.

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

  • noun sadness expressed by weeping

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

tearful +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • She had several symptoms of major depression—sadness, tearfulness, loss of appetite, decreased concentration, and waking up at four each morning.

    The 7 Glenn Beck 2011

  • It was surely this meld of slapstick and tearfulness that prompted the grand master of the genre, Charlie Chaplin, to embrace Wisdom as his "favourite clown".

    Sir Norman Wisdom obituary Stephen Dixon 2010

  • They covered external behaviours such as hyperactivity, tantrums and aggression, and internal ones, including unhappiness, tearfulness and worry.

    Working mothers do no harm to their young children, research finds 2011

  • She had several symptoms of major depression—sadness, tearfulness, loss of appetite, decreased concentration, and waking up at four each morning.

    The 7 Glenn Beck 2011

  • At the time, I put my tearfulness down to being stressed out about visiting and ‘coming out’ to Mum and Dad, and undoubtedly that intensity of emotions was part of it.

    Helen’s Guide To PMS 2008

  • For a few days of acute upset, and then a much longer period of the longing, the tearfulness.

    Is Emotional Pain Necessary? 2010

  • Three years on, the jackhammer beats of comeback single "Dancing on my Own", suck you on to the nearest dancefloor; the tune's stoic tearfulness recalls the masters of the genre, Abba.

    Robyn: Body Talk Part 1 2010

  • But after Bill Clinton made tearfulness popular again it tracked well, especially with women voters, Bob Dole learned to cry at political events himself, and did so repeatedly in his 1996 campaign.

    Are John Boehner's tears fair game for Post satire? Andy Alexander 2010

  • Tenzin speaks in good English about his tearfulness following the death of the Buddhist monk he followed, Geshe-La, and the challenge of searching for his reincarnation.

    Jim Luce: Israeli Film: Unmistaken Child in Tibet 2009

  • What you would see in the dad is a punitive attitude towards the children, in the children, (INAUDIBLE), which is like bed wetting, tearfulness, sleeplessness, loss of appetite in that the father would view the children as unconditionally bad because that ` s what you see in cases of child abuse.

    CNN Transcript Mar 19, 2009 2009

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