The Collaborative International Dictionary
Brokenness \Bro"ken*ness\, n.
The state or quality of being broken; unevenness.
--Macaulay.Contrition; as, brokenness of heart.
Wiktionary
n. The characteristic of being broken.
Usage examples of "brokenness".
It was about loving my mother for everything—for her brokenness and her fleeing, for her being there right then in that moment before the sun rose and The Lovely Bones the hospital staff came in.
Harvey had [287] Alice Sebold killed He wandered around, keeping a good distance from his neighbors an^ wanting so much to take solace in the love of cats and does- For me tne saddest thing was that these animals smelled tt*e brokenness in him—the human defect—and kept away.
People's voices variously hummed and racketed, a hobbling chant, a search for melody and breath, bodies rising, attempts to heal a brokenness.
This time there was no glint in her eye, no upthrust breast or canted hip, just a frightening brokenness.
He waited for no reply to his questions, and talked with nervous brokenness.