The Collaborative International Dictionary
Asperity \As*per"i*ty\, n.; pl. Asperities. [L. asperitas, fr. asper rough: cf. F. asp['e]rit['e].]
Roughness of surface; unevenness; -- opposed to smoothness. ``The asperities of dry bodies.''
--Boyle.Roughness or harshness of sound; that quality which grates upon the ear; raucity.
Roughness to the taste; sourness; tartness.
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Moral roughness; roughness of manner; severity; crabbedness; harshness; -- opposed to mildness. ``Asperity of character.''
--Landor.It is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received.
--Johnson. -
Sharpness; disagreeableness; difficulty.
The acclivities and asperities of duty.
--Barrow.Syn: Acrimony; moroseness; crabbedness; harshness; sourness; tartness. See Acrimony.
Wiktionary
n. (plural of asperity English)
Usage examples of "asperities".
But suddenly I remembered it, the irremediable asperities of an inhuman world vanished, as if by magic.
As, in the rules of tactics, an attack in one sector compels a counter-attack in another, so as not to be hurt by the the asperities of my nature, all of them effected in their own an identical resilience, always at the same points, and to make up for this took advantage of the gaps in my line to thrust out advanced posts.
Putting aside slight asperities, we will all own that the people of the States have been and are our friends, and that as friends we cannot spare them.
A month of rigid weather is supposed to brace up the moral nature, and a month of gentleness is supposed to soften the asperities of the disposition, but February contributes to neither of these ends.
But if one goes ahead quietly and, just as the experienced beekeeper, lays hold with a firm hand, if one is not afraid and shows that one intends no wrong, the excitement and asperities subside wondrously quickly and the petty world tolerates what it contended it could never endure.
But with her son, the old lady had better success: he would listen to all she had to say, provided she could soothe his fretful temper, and refrain from irritating him by her own asperities.
That on the roughest temper throws disguise, And steals from virtue her asperities.
Without changing his clothes, and using a wooden racket, he played tennis with Demi, Urania, and Callisto on a court so rich in excrescences and asperities that his choice of groundstrokeforehand or backhandnecessarily depended on the ball's right-angled bounce.
Maisie found in this exchange of asperities a fresh incitement to the unformulated fatalism in which her sense of her own career had long since taken refuge.
The river having now no water but what the springs supply, showed us only a swift current, clear and shallow, fretting over the asperities of the rocky bottom, and we were left to exercise our thoughts, by endeavouring to conceive the effect of a thousand streams poured from the mountains into one channel, struggling for expansion in a narrow passage, exasperated by rocks rising in their way, and at last discharging all their violence of waters by a sudden fall through the horrid chasm.