different between costive vs costiveness

English

Etymology

From Middle French costivé, ultimately from Latin constipatus (“constipated”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?st?v/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k?st?v/

Adjective

costive

1. constipated
2. miserly, parsimonious

Quotations

constipated (figurative)

• 2005, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, Bloomsbury Publishing, paperback edition, page 346:

  Melanie, who was used to Wani's costive memos, and even to dressing up the gist of a letter in her own words, stuck out her tongue in concentration as she took down Nick's old-fashioned periods and perplexing semicolons.

Anagrams

• voicest

English

Etymology

From costive +? -ness.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?st?vn?s/

Noun

costiveness (uncountable)

1. The state or quality of being costive; constipation.
   • January 1822, Richard Reece [editor] "Letters of a Royal Physician, on Indigestion &c. &c.", in The Monthly Gazette of Health Volume 7

     The new cases prove that in habitual costiveness or inactivity of the bowels, galvanism is a more valuable remedy, and that its effects are permanent .

2. (obsolete) Inability to express oneself; stiffness.
   • 1792, Gilbert Wakefield, Memoirs of the Life of Gilbert Wakefield

     a reverend disputant of the same coftiveness in public elocution with myself