Meaning of SEVERITY
| Pronunciation: | | si'veritee
|
 WordNet Dictionary |
| |
| | Definition: | |
- [n] excessive sternness; "severity of character"; "the harshness of his punishment was inhuman"; "the rigors of boot camp"
- [n] something hard to endure; "the asperity of northern winters"
- [n] used of the degree of something undesirable e.g. pain or weather
|
| |
| | Websites: | |
|
| |
| | Synonyms: | | asperity, badness, grimness, hardness, hardship, harshness, inclemency, rigor, rigorousness, rigour, stiffness |
| |
| | See Also: | | difficultness, difficulty, distressfulness, intensity, intensiveness, seriousness, sternness, strictness | |
| Webster's 1913 Dictionary |
| |
| | Definition: | | \Se*ver"i*ty\, n.; pl. {Severities}. [L. severitas: cf.
F. s['e]v['e]rit['e].]
The quality or state of being severe. Specifically:
(a) Gravity or austerity; extreme strictness; rigor;
harshness; as, the severity of a reprimand or a reproof;
severity of discipline or government; severity of
penalties. ``Strict age, and sour severity.'' --Milton.
(b) The quality or power of distressing or paining; extreme
degree; extremity; intensity; inclemency; as, the
severity of pain or anguish; the severity of cold or
heat; the severity of the winter.
(c) Harshness; cruel treatment; sharpness of punishment; as,
severity practiced on prisoners of war.
(d) Exactness; rigorousness; strictness; as, the severity of
a test.
Confining myself to the severity of truth.
--Dryden.
|
| |
| | Websites: | |
|
| |
|
|