ACUTENESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does acuteness mean? 

• ACUTENESS (noun)
  The noun ACUTENESS has 3 senses:

1. a sensitivity that is keen and highly developed

2. a quick and penetrating intelligence

3. the quality of having a sharp edge or point

  Familiarity information: ACUTENESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ACUTENESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sensitivity that is keen and highly developed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Context example:

dogs have a remarkable acuteness of smell

Hypernyms ("acuteness" is a kind of...):

sensibility; sensitiveness; sensitivity ((physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A quick and penetrating intelligence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

acuity; acuteness; keenness; sharpness

Context example:

I admired the keenness of his mind

Hypernyms ("acuteness" is a kind of...):

intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "acuteness"):

steel trap (an acute intelligence (an analogy based on the well-known sharpness of steel traps))

Derivation:

acute (having or demonstrating ability to recognize or draw fine distinctions)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The quality of having a sharp edge or point

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("acuteness" is a kind of...):

keenness; sharpness (thinness of edge or fineness of point)

Antonym:

obtuseness (the quality of lacking a sharp edge or point)

Derivation:

acute (ending in a sharp point)

 Context examples 

He shaved hairs from the back of his hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a slight inequality in its edge somewhere.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The whole discourse was written with great acuteness, containing many observations, both curious and useful for politicians; but, as I conceived, not altogether complete.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

As the acuteness of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a sense of joy.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Ex-act-ly—pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I rather believe you are giving me more credit for acuteness than I deserve.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Well read in the art of concealing a treasure, the possibility of false linings to the drawers did not escape her, and she felt round each with anxious acuteness in vain.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her; and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had never suffered.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

More was not expected by one who, while seeing all the obligation and expediency of submission and forbearance, saw also with sympathetic acuteness of feeling all that must be hourly grating to a girl like Susan.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)