"state of being overpowered by intoxicants," Old English druncennysse; see drunken + -ness. Other Middle English words for it included drunkenhead (c. 1300), drunkenship (mid-15c.).
Entries linking to drunkenness
drunken adj.
full form of the past participle of drink. Now chiefly as an adjective, "inebriated;" that sense was in Old English druncena. The meaning "habitually intoxicated" is by 1540s. Also, of things, "soaked, saturated" (early 15c.). Figurative sense of "acting as if drunk, uneven, unsteady" is by 1786. Related: Drunkenly. In the sense "addicted to drink, habitually inebriated" Middle English also had drunc-wile (c. 1200); drunkensom (mid-13c.).
-ness
word-forming element denoting action, quality, or state, attached to an adjective or past participle to form an abstract noun, from Old English -nes(s), from Proto-Germanic *in-assu- (cognates: Old Saxon -nissi, Middle Dutch -nisse, Dutch -nis, Old High German -nissa, German -nis, Gothic -inassus), from *-in-, originally belonging to the noun stem, + *-assu-, abstract noun suffix, probably from the same root as Latin -tudo (see -tude).