The quality or state of being bearish; a gruff or surly demeanor, or in finance, a tendency toward pessimism about market prices.
From 'bearish' plus the noun-forming suffix '-ness,' which creates abstract nouns describing qualities or states. This suffix allows adjectives to become countable concepts.
The '-ness' suffix is one of English's most productive tools for turning feelings and qualities into nouns we can discuss, analyze, and measure—without it, we couldn't really talk about abstract concepts like 'gruffness' or 'pessimism' as things in themselves.
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