the.com/lonesomeness
the ache of an empty room you sometimes lock from the inside.
means The state or feeling of being lonely — a quiet, aching sense of solitude or isolation.
from A layered English word: "lone" is a worn-down clipping of "alone" (itself from Middle English "al one," meaning "all one," wholly by oneself). Add the Old English suffix "-some," which forms adjectives of quality (as in "wholesome," "tiresome"), to get "lonesome" — and then pile on "-ness," the ancient Germanic suffix that turns a quality into a thing you can hold. So the word is built like a small tower of solitude: alone, made into a trait, made into a noun. "Lonesome" itself is recorded from around the 17th century, with a distinctly homely, American flavor that later flourished in folk song and frontier melancholy.
- brain pain
- Loneliness lights up the same regions as physical injury.
- health risk
- Chronic isolation rivals smoking fifteen cigarettes daily.
- crowd-proof
- You can feel it surrounded by people.
- old word
- English distinguished lonesome from merely alone centuries ago.
- contagious
- Loneliness spreads through social networks like a mood.