harshness

English

Etymology

harsh +‎ -ness

Noun

harshness (countable and uncountable, plural harshnesses)

  1. The quality of being harsh.
    • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles‎:
      And yet these harshnesses are tenderness itself when compared with the universal harshness out of which they grow; the harshness of the position towards the temperament, of the means towards the aims, of to-day towards yesterday, of hereafter towards to-day.
    • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter II, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:
      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.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.