The quality or state of being feverish, either from actual fever or from intense excitement and restlessness.
Formed from 'feverish' plus '-ness' (noun-forming suffix meaning state or quality). The '-ness' suffix is one of the oldest noun-forming endings in English, allowing adjectives to become abstract nouns describing their essential quality.
The '-ness' suffix is incredibly productive in English—you can add it to almost any adjective to create an abstract noun! This reveals how language lets us talk about qualities themselves as independent things, transforming actions or states into nouns we can discuss philosophically.
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