From Middle English bluntnes, bluntnesse, equivalent to blunt +‎ -ness.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈblʌnt.nəs/, /ˈblʌnt.nɪs/, [ˈblʌnʔ.nɪs]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌntnəs

bluntness (countable and uncountable, plural bluntnesses)

1. The characteristic of being blunt.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.