What does digestibleness mean?
Digestibleness is a noun denoting the quality of being digestible — that is, the ease with which a food can be broken down and absorbed by the body. A food praised for its digestibleness is one that causes little strain on the stomach and yields its nutrients readily. The word is formed from the adjective 'digestible' plus the suffix '-ness', which converts adjectives into abstract nouns naming a state or quality. Although perfectly well-formed, it is rare in contemporary usage: modern nutrition science and ordinary writing almost invariably prefer the alternative noun 'digestibility'. As a result, digestibleness carries a slightly old-fashioned or literary flavor, appearing chiefly in historical texts on diet and cookery or when a writer deliberately seeks an unusual term. Its meaning, however, remains transparent to any reader familiar with 'digestible', making it an intelligible if infrequent member of the English lexicon.
nounThe quality or state of being digestible; the degree to which a food can be easily digested by the body.
- The quality of being easily digestible by the body.
"Cooking the beans thoroughly greatly improves their digestibleness."
"Steaming the vegetables preserves their nutrients while enhancing their digestibleness."
"Early nutrition writers praised rice for its digestibleness compared to coarser grains."
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of digestibleness
Digestibleness derives from the adjective 'digestible', which comes from the Latin 'digestibilis', formed from 'digerere' meaning 'to divide, distribute, or dissolve' — itself from 'dis-' ('apart') and 'gerere' ('to carry or perform'). The suffix '-ness', of Old English origin, was added to form an abstract noun denoting the state or quality of being digestible. It shares its root with related words such as 'digestion', 'digestive', and 'ingest'.
Related word forms
How digestibleness is actually used
A rare and somewhat archaic-sounding noun; in modern scientific and everyday writing, 'digestibility' is strongly preferred. 'Digestibleness' appears mostly in older texts or as an occasional stylistic variant.
Easily confused with digestibleness
Digestibility is the standard, far more common term for the same concept, while digestibleness is a rarer variant form of the noun.