HARSHNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does harshness mean? 

• HARSHNESS (noun)
  The noun HARSHNESS has 4 senses:

1. the roughness of a substance that causes abrasions

2. the quality of being harsh or rough or grating to the senses

3. the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance

4. excessive sternness

  Familiarity information: HARSHNESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HARSHNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The roughness of a substance that causes abrasions

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

abrasiveness; harshness; scratchiness

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

raggedness; roughness (a texture of a surface or edge that is not smooth but is irregular and uneven)

Derivation:

harsh (of textures that are rough to the touch or substances consisting of relatively large particles)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being harsh or rough or grating to the senses

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

harshness; roughness

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

unpleasantness (the quality of giving displeasure)

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

gruffness; hoarseness; huskiness (a throaty harshness)

Derivation:

harsh (unpleasantly rough or jarring to the senses)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

cruelness; cruelty; harshness

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

malevolence; malevolency; malice (the quality of threatening evil)

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

brutality; ferociousness; savagery; viciousness (the trait of extreme cruelty)

murderousness (cruelty evidence by a capability to commit murder)

Derivation:

harsh (unkind or cruel or uncivil)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Excessive sternness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

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

Context example:

the rigors of boot camp

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

sternness; strictness (uncompromising resolution)

Derivation:

harsh (sharply disagreeable; rigorous)

harsh (unpleasantly stern)

 Context examples 

It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as might be.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He's my child, and I can't have his spirit broken by harshness.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The more fiercely he fought, the more harshly society handled him, and the only effect of harshness was to make him fiercer.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The lips were full, yet possessed of the firmness, almost harshness, which is characteristic of thin lips.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

She delayed to speak, and at last she spoke haltingly, hesitating to frame in words the harshness of her thought.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

And yet, without a harshness which was foreign to his nature, it was impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the young and beautiful woman, tall, graceful, and queenly, who presented herself at Baker Street late in the evening, and implored his assistance and advice.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than mine.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He might have made her childhood happier; but it had been an error of judgment only which had given him the appearance of harshness, and deprived him of her early love; and now, on really knowing each other, their mutual attachment became very strong.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)