Often I need to use a generic description to explain a system that has multiple states.
For instance if I am explaining that a message can be urgent or non-urgent, I could say:
Message priority (urgent or non-urgent) is given to messages based on it's urgencyness.
This is a trite example, because we have a word for this, and it is 'urgency'.
Message priority is given to messages based on it's urgency.
However there are scenarios where there isn't an adjective, or we need to highlight multiple states.
For example, if an action can have a state of 'emergency' or 'non-emergency':
Action priority is given to an action based on it's emergencyness.
Here the word emergency doesn't work, and adding 'ness' to the end does not seem formally correct (it should be however easy to understand).
I have taken in some cases to (ab)using the word parity:
MATHEMATICS (of a number) the fact of being even or odd.
As a shorthand to explain something, albeit clumsily.
Action priority is given to an action based on it's emergency parity.
This falls down in cases where there are multiple states an object can be in, e.g. Old, Recent, New.
Is there a single word that can be used to explain a non-trivial system, with fixed states, without listing them:
Emails are coloured based on their Age _______