WordWeb Online

1. The choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
   - kernel, substance, core, center [US], centre [Brit, Cdn], essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty
    
2. Preoccupation especially with one's attitudes and ethical or ideological values
   "the sensitiveness of James's characters, their seeming inwardness"; "inwardness is what an Englishman quite simply has, painlessly, as a birthright"
    
3. The quality or state of being inward or internal
   "the inwardness of the body's organs"
    
4. Preoccupation with what concerns human inner nature (especially ethical or ideological values)
   "Socrates' inwardness, integrity, and inquisitiveness";
   - internality

See also: inward

Type of: cognitive content, cognitive state, content, introversion, mental object, position, spatial relation, state of mind

Antonym: outwardness