The quality of being careful, tactful, and modest in behavior; the ability to handle sensitive matters without drawing attention.
From 'discreet' plus the suffix '-ness,' which creates abstract nouns from adjectives. This suffix comes from Old English and has been used for over 1,000 years to transform qualities into countable concepts.
Adding '-ness' to adjectives is so fundamental to English that we do it almost unconsciously—'darkness,' 'sadness,' 'kindness'—and it's been our go-to method since medieval times for turning feelings into things we can talk about!
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