The quality or state of being disadvantageous; the degree to which something puts someone in a worse position.
Disadvantageous + -ness (noun suffix creating abstract nouns). The -ness suffix has Old English roots and transforms adjectives into countable abstract concepts.
Adding -ness to adjectives is one of English's most productive word-building patterns, and this rare noun shows how we can nominalize almost any quality when we need to discuss it philosophically or academically.
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