All 8 Uses of
acute
in
The Scarlet Letter
- His gifts were emphatically those of a man of business; prompt, acute, clear-minded; with an eye that saw through all perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement that made them vanish as by the waving of an enchanter's wand.
Chpt Intr. (definition 1)acute = sharp (highly perceptive or intelligent)
- If, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of partisans I began now, at this season of peril and adversity, to be pretty acutely sensible with which party my predilections lay; nor was it without something like regret and shame that, according to a reasonable calculation of chances, I saw my own prospect of retaining office to be better than those of my democratic brethren.
Chpt Intr. (definition 1)acutely = sharply (highly)
- But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness of the child.
Chpt 6 (definition 1) *acuteness = sharpness (perceptiveness and/or intelligence)
- It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart—but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute—he recognised the tones of little Pearl.
Chpt 12 (definition 2)acute = sharp (intense)
- But now the idea came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when she could have been made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent or the child.
Chpt 15 (definition 1)acuteness = intelligence (sharpness or high perceptiveness)
- "Doth he love us?" said Pearl, looking up with acute intelligence into her mother's face.
Chpt 19 (definition 1)acute = sharp (astute or smart)
- Sad, indeed, that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor minister's should be so miserably deceived!
Chpt 20 (definition 1)acute = sharp (highly perceptive or intelligent)
- For an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentrated on the ghastly miracle; while the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory.
Chpt 23 (definition 2) *acutest = sharpest (most severe)
Definitions:
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(1) (acute as in: acute sense of smell) sharp (highly perceptive in some area or mentally sharp)
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(2) (acute as in: acute pain) sharp (severe or strong) -- usually negative