not-thereness

not-thereness

English

Etymology

not there +‎ -ness

Noun

not-thereness (uncountable)

1. The quality of not being there; absence.
   • 1983, Baruch Hochman, The test of character: from the Victorian novel to the modern

     ...the palpable thereness of Woolf's characters is generated by her dramatization of their own sense of their evanescence, their imminent not-thereness.

   • 2001, Rod Mengham, N. H. Reeve, The fiction of the 1940s: stories of survival

     In Bowen's work, thereness is uncomfortably close to not-thereness, being to non-being, presence to 'no-presence' (Friends, pp. 33, 91).

   • 2002, Michael Lowenthal, Avoidance

     The comatose feel of Max, the pendulous not-thereness as he leaned onto me, now returned. "How did I screw up so bad?" I said.

Antonyms

• thereness