whiteness

noun

white·​ness ˈ(h)wīt-nəs 

1

: the quality or state of being white: such as

a

: white color

The whiteness of a diamond is the most important factor, unless you're buying a fancy color like yellow or pink.

—The New York Times Style Magazine

b

: pallor, paleness

… watching the way … his stomach hung pregnant over his belt, the whiteness of his skin, the blueness of his veins …

—Zadie Smith

c

: freedom from stain : cleanness

During the day, housewives pegged out billowing sheets, knowing that here in the tough North they were judged on clean linen and the whiteness of the front doorstep …

—Paul West

2

: something (such as an area or a substance) that is white in color

… this widening in the river, a place indistinguishable in winter from the surrounding whiteness …

—John Hildebrand

The curtains were being drawn across the aeroplane windows; a screen was lowered at the head of the cabin; images flickered on the whiteness ahead.

—Shashi Tharoor

This is a gelid whiteness, studded with a few bits of … fruit and altogether devoid of discernible flavor or sweetness.

—Jay Jacobs

3

: the fact or state of belonging to a population group that has light pigmentation of the skin : the fact or state of being white (see white entry 1 sense 2a)

Racial or color categories communicate the long-standing color scale in which lightness/whiteness is more desirable and more socially valued than darkness/blackness.

—Nadine Fernandez

Did I yearn to convert to whiteness? As a child, if it had been a matter of pushing a button, there were times when I would have pushed it as idly and insistently as a man waiting for an elevator.

—Kenji Yoshino

The proposition that whiteness, as such, has no content but is rather a negation, the identity of not-being-black, is a shocking revelation to most white Americans, who continue to imagine that there is a nonracist way of defining their whiteness in positive terms, although they are tongue-tied when asked to say what it is.

—Orlando Patterson

Examples of whiteness in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In a world where whiteness and conventional beauty are tightly coupled with success, couldn't selecting for these features be a way to minimize a child's future suffering? —Tania Fabo, MSNBC Newsweek, 6 Aug. 2025

Critics have said the jeans campaign amounts to a dog whistle for eugenics and a glorification of whiteness. —Rebecca Morin, USA Today, 4 Aug. 2025

Unfortunately, Holland never really explains the connection between whiteness and the ads and how whiteness is now unbridled. —Matt Fleming, Oc Register, 1 Aug. 2025

The small but powerful group of Black families who experience greater proximity to wealth (and whiteness, both in terms of sharing space and sharing the cultural customs borne of privilege) becomes its own sort of status for the show’s Black characters. —Evan Nicole Brown, Architectural Digest, 25 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for whiteness

• politeness
• uprightness
• brightness
• lightness
• rightness
• tightness