Riskiness comes from risky + -ness, from risk, from French risque, from Italian risco/rischio ('danger'), of uncertain origin, possibly from Vulgar Latin *resecum ('that which cuts, a reef'). The historical chain includes Italian rischio. Older glosses in the chain include "danger" and "that which cuts, a reef", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, riskiness is best read as compound, suffixal formation, borrowing, and uncertain formation, yielding an English noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun, with the sense "the quality of involving danger or the possibility of loss". related forms include risk, risky, and riskily. The result is an English noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.