Unpleasantness is bad feeling, or a disagreeable episode. Avoid any unpleasantness, a bit of unpleasantness, the recent unpleasantness.
It is a euphemism as often as a description: the recent unpleasantness is how somebody refers to a serious quarrel or a war without naming it, and the understatement is the point. As a plain word it means the quality of being unpleasant. Note pleasant, from the Old French for pleasing.
1noununpleasantnessBad feeling, or a disagreeable episode.
“After some unpleasantness over the bill, the two families stopped speaking.”
unpleasantness is bad feeling.
Middle English
unplesaunt
English
unpleasant
English, today
unpleasantness
From unpleasant + -ness. unpleasant comes from Middle English unplesaunt, equivalent to un- + pleasant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA