Dictionary

harshness en · NOUN

Etymology

From Middle English harsknes; equivalent to harsh + -ness.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The quality of being harsh.
   • And yet these harshnesses are tenderness itself when compared with the universal harshness out of which they grow; the harshness of the position towards the temperament, of the means towards the aims, of to-day towards yesterday, of hereafter towards to-day. 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, part 6:
   • She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky. 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II (Burglary), page 378, column 1:

Forms

Translations (8)

ca cruesa (quality of being harsh) · grc χαλεπότης (quality of being harsh) · hi क्रूरता (quality of being harsh) · ar جَلَافَة (quality of being harsh) · ga gairge (quality of being harsh) · tr şiddet (quality of being harsh) · pl bezwzględność (quality of being harsh) · pl bezpardonowość (quality of being harsh)