lakeness

lake +‎ -ness

lakeness (uncountable)

1. The state or quality of being a lake.
   • 1977, J. Bryan Moffet, Teaching Elementary School Social Studies, Little, Brown (1977), page 184:

     Children who have seen a small lake surrounded by a white sand beach have beginning ideas of what lakeness is.

   • 1995, Ralph Lombreglia, Make Me Work, Penguin (1995), →ISBN, page 100:

     Sam was painting big abstract landscapes in those days — masses of green and brown and blue plucked from the world around here — and he would tell me the right way to look at the lake, how to empty myself of all thoughts of lakeness, and just see the thing.

   • 2002, Harvey Manning, Walking the Beach to Bellingham, Oregon State University Press (2002), →ISBN, page 113:

     Ahead stretched miles of the unknown, lands and waters resembling my home waters, yet not quite it. There was a disturbing feeling of lakeness: unlike four-doored Possession Sound and multi-doored Puget, Port Susan had but a single door.

• seneskal