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Definition 2024


enclosedness

enclosedness

English

Noun

enclosedness (uncountable)

  1. The state or characteristic of being confined within actual or figurative boundaries.
    • 1915, D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow. ch. 13:
      Maggie was always single, always withheld. . . . It was during this winter that Ursula suffered and enjoyed most keenly Maggie's fundamental sadness of enclosedness.
    • 1984, Christopher E. G. Benfey, Emily Dickinson and the Problem of Others, ISBN 9780870234378, p. 63 (Google preview):
      We must ask, first, whether our privacy — call it our distance or enclosedness or unknowability with respect to others — is elected or inevitable.
    • 2006 Feb. 26, "Deeper Waters: Sarah Waters speaks to Anthony Quinn, The Age (Australia) (retrieved 27 Oct 2013):
      "I was thinking about the moment when that enclosedness, which can be protective, tips over into something menacing and unpleasant."

Synonyms