hardness
hard·ness/ˈhɑɹdnəs/noun
hardness is spelled H-A-R-D-N-E-S-S: 8 letters and 2 syllables (hard·ness). It appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 23,253rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, hardness means “The quality of being hard” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of hardness is hardnesses.
How many letters and syllables are in hardness?
| Letters | 8: H-A-R-D-N-E-S-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: hard·ness |
| In writing | 1.5 times per million words; the 23,253rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is hardness?
Hardness appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 23,253rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hardness?
- US /ˈhɑɹdnəs/
- UK /ˈhɑːdnəs/
Hardness has 2 syllables, split hard·ness in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-hardness.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hardness
- hardnesses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hardness mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The quality of being hard.
- 2
An instance of this quality; hardship.
- 3
The quantity of calcium carbonate dissolved in water, usually expressed in parts per million (ppm).
- 4
The resistance to scratching, cutting, indentation or abrasion of a metal or other solid material.
- 5
The penetrating ability of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays; generally, the shorter the wavelength, the harder and more penetrating the radiation.
- 6
The measure of resistance to damage of a facility, equipment, installation, or telecommunications infrastructure when subjected to attack.
- 7
A measure of how hard a material is.
The hardness of the material was high.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hardness in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense quality of being hard:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hardness come from?
From Middle English hardness, hardnesse, from Old English heardnes, from heard + -nes, equivalent to hard + -ness.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).