Dictionary

superacuteness en · NOUN

Etymology

From superacute + -ness.

Meanings

1. (rare, uncountable, usually) The quality of being superacute.
   • After a day or two as they walked and ate together it became apparent to him that the illness was born of what might be described as maladjustment between the body and the superacuteness of the young man’s perceptions. 1965, Louis Bromfield, “The Man Who Was in Love with Death”, in Phyllis R. Fenner, compiler, Danger is the Password: Stories of Wartime Spies, New York: William Morrow & Company, page 121:
   • The physician is unable to account for it except through superacuteness of a sense of smell which detects mortification of the body even while life exists. 1902 March 4, “Odor Warns Him of Death”, in The Los Angeles Times, page 3, column 5:
   • We learn that we must in many questions content ourselves with an avowal of ignorance; and that superacuteness which imagines thatit can explain the most complicated historical developments by a few ingenious aperçus is humbled. 1889 June 30, “Broad View of Language”, in The New York Times, volume XXXVIII, number 11805, page 11, column 6:
   • If in forming the ear the cells were impelled to evolve strict efficiency only that man might survive, why did they not extend the range and develop a superacuteness? 1944, A. Cressy Morrison, “Animal Instincts” (chapter VIII), in Man Does Not Stand Alone, New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, page 54:

Forms