asperity
Meanings
Plural: asperities
Noun
- something hard to endure
- "the asperity of northern winters"
- harshness of manner
- The quality of having a rough or uneven surface; roughness, unevenness; (countable, chiefly in the plural) a protruding or rough area or point on a surface; a protrusion.
- The quality of having a rough or uneven surface; roughness, unevenness; (countable, chiefly in the plural) a protruding or rough area or point on a surface; a protrusion.
- A section of a fault line with high friction, such that there is no movement along this part of the fault except during an earthquake.
- The quality of being difficult or unpleasant to experience; (countable) a thing that is harsh and difficult to endure; a difficulty, a hardship.
- The quality of being harsh or severe in the way one behaves or speaks toward another person; (countable, chiefly in the plural) a deeply hostile or resentful feeling; an animosity, a hatred.
- Of sound: gratingness, harshness.
- Of taste: harshness or sharpness; acridity, tartness.
- Of writing: a lack of elegance and refinement; inelegance, roughness.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English asprete, asperite, from Old French aspreté (modern French âpreté), from Latin asperitātem, the accusative singular of asperitās (“roughness, unevenness; fierceness, severity; harshness, sharpness; acidity, tartness”), from asper (“coarse, rough, uneven; bitter, fierce harsh; rude, unrefined; etc.”) (probably from Proto-Indo-European *h₂esp- (“to cut”)) + -itās (a variant of -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being)). The spelling of the English word is influenced directly by Latin asperitātem. Doublet of asperitas.
Synonyms
acerbity, acrimony, bump, bumpiness, grimness, hardship, harshness, protuberance, rigor, rigorousness, rigour, rigourousness, ruggedness, severeness, severity, sharpness
Antonyms
Scrabble Score: 13
asperity is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordasperity is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
asperity is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary