HARSHNESS

severity, severeness, harshness, rigor, rigour, rigorousness, rigourousness, inclemency, hardness, stiffness

(noun) excessive sternness; “severity of character”; “the harshness of his punishment was inhuman”; “the rigors of boot camp”

cruelty, cruelness, harshness

(noun) the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance

harshness, abrasiveness, scratchiness

(noun) the roughness of a substance that causes abrasions

harshness, roughness

(noun) the quality of being harsh or rough or grating to the senses

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

harshness (countable and uncountable, plural harshnesses)

The quality of being harsh.

She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.

Source: Wiktionary


Harsh"ness, n.

Definition: The quality or state of being harsh. O, she is Ten times more gentle than her father 's crabbed, And he's composed of harshness. Shak. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Pope.

Syn.

– Acrimony; roughness; sternness; asperity; tartness. See Acrimony.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

26 November 2024

TRANSPOSITION

(noun) (music) playing in a different key from the key intended; moving the pitch of a piece of music upwards or downwards


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Coffee Trivia

In the 18th century, the Swedish government made coffee and its paraphernalia (including cups and dishes) illegal for its supposed ties to rebellious sentiment.

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