The quality or state of doing something in advance or with prior preparation.
From 'beforehand' (before the event occurs) plus '-ness' (the suffix creating abstract nouns from adjectives). 'Beforehand' itself combines 'before' plus 'hand,' originally meaning 'at hand' or 'ready.'
Words like 'beforehandedness' show why English has so many long, abstract nouns—we can stack suffixes on suffixes: before → beforehand → beforehanded → beforehandedness, each layer adding meaning like geological strata.
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