Crossword Dictionary
asperity
asperity, sharpness - n
harshness of manner
synonyms
acerbity, acidity, acidness, acridity, acridness, acrimoniousness, acrimony, acuteness, bite, bitterness, edge, harshness, keenness, poignance, poignancy, pungency, roughness, sharpness, tartness
ina sentence
By the time Keane wrote Devoted Ladies, a note of asperity had crept into her fiction.
Imagine Don Draper’s grasp of American psychopathology delivered with the pithy asperity of Emily Dickinson.
etymology
c. 1200, asprete "hardship," from Old French asperité "difficulty, painful situation, harsh treatment" (12c., Modern French âpreté), a figurative use, from Latin asperitatem (nominative asperitas) "roughness," from asper "rough, harsh," which is of unknown origin. The Latin adjective was used also of sour wine, bad weather, and hard times. Figurative meaning "harshness of feeling" in English is attested from 1660s; literal sense of "roughness of surface" is from early 15c.