defensiveness

1. 1.

   excessive sensitivity to criticism

   “his defensiveness was manifested in hurt silence”

   “the fear of being sued for malpractice has magnified physicians' defensiveness”

   Broadersensitivity

   Narrowerbunker mentality

Other forms of defensiveness

plural

defensivenesses·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about defensiveness

What does defensiveness mean?

defensiveness means "excessive sensitivity to criticism".

How many syllables are in defensiveness?

defensiveness has 4 syllables: defen-siv-e-ness. The stress falls on "siv". In IPA it is /dɪˈfɛnsɪvnəs/.

Is defensiveness a common word?

defensiveness is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.