The quality or state of being dolesome; sorrow, melancholy, or the characteristic of being mournful and dreary (archaic).
From dolesome (adjective) + -ness (noun suffix). An archaic abstract noun formation that duplicates the meaning of 'dolefulness' but through a different etymological pathway.
English loves redundancy—we ended up with both 'dolefulness' and 'dolesomeness' meaning the same thing, which is why one survived (dolefulness) and one faded away, showing how language is constantly editing itself.
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