asperity

[uh-sper-i-tee]

noun

plural

asperities 

1. harshness or sharpness of tone, temper, or manner; severity; acrimony.

   The cause of her anger did not warrant such asperity.

   Synonyms: astringency, bitterness, acerbity
   Antonyms: cheerfulness, affability

2. hardship; difficulty; rigor.

   the asperities of polar weather.

3. roughness of surface; unevenness.

4. something rough or harsh.

asperity

/ æˈspɛrɪtɪ /

noun

1. roughness or sharpness of temper

2. roughness or harshness of a surface, sound, taste, etc

3. a condition hard to endure; affliction

4. physics the elastically compressed region of contact between two surfaces caused by the normal force

Word History and Origins

Origin of asperity¹

1200–50; late Middle English asperite (< Anglo-French ) < Latin asperitās, equivalent to asper rough + -itās -ity; replacing Middle English asprete < Anglo-French, Old French < Latin

Word History and Origins

Origin of asperity¹

C16: from Latin asperitās, from asper rough

Example Sentences

Compared to smooth faults, injection-induced slip on rough faults produces spatially localized clusters of Acoustic Emissions occurring around highly stressed asperities.

From Science Daily

On a re-read, Orwell’s narrative holds up, in large part due to the asperity of the prose and the prescient description of how fascism can creep into any society that takes freedom for granted.

From Los Angeles Times

She mentions, with some asperity, a phone call from New York when “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” appeared in The New Yorker in 1963.

From New York Times

Arch, cracking with energetic, even contemptuous asperity, it is a world apart from “Everybody.”

From Washington Post

More notable is the specificity of his satire—he has a degree in agronomy—and the seriousness of his engagement with the economic asperities of provincial France in the era of the gilets jaunes.

From The New Yorker