acute

in a sentence

grouped by contextual meaning

She had acute appendicitis.

There was never enough air in the world, but the shortage was particularly acute in that moment.  (source) John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

They carried unspeakable memories of torture and humiliation, and an acute sense of vulnerability that attended the knowledge of how readily they could be disarmed and dehumanized.  (source) Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, 2010

She realized that she could move her fingers and toes with comparative freedom, and the pain was no longer so acute.  (source) Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, 1962

It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.  (source) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1831

Wu, thirty-three years old, was acutely aware that he had worked for Hammond all his professional life.  (source) Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park, 1993

However, it was thought that a slight improvement in the food-supply could safely be counted on, and this would relieve what was just now the acutest worry of every household.†  (source) Albert Camus, The Plague, 1947

It was this hyperacuteness that made him decide that he was being stalked.†  (source) Robert A. Heinlein, Tunnel In the Sky, 1955

Over him breaks a wave of homesickness so acute that he has to clamp his eyes.  (source) Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See, 2014

The doctor grinned, the corners of his mouth tight, half-appreciative of the acuteness in my voice.†  (source) Chang-rae Lee, A Gesture Life, 1999

I missed my father, more acutely than I ever had before.  (source) Kenneth Oppel, Airborn, 2004

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.  (source) Nathanial Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850

The conflicts Murillo sees are most acute when the child was the last to be brought north because the mother couldn't afford to bring everyone at once.  (source) Sonia Nazario, Enrique's Journey, 2006

Birds tend to have acute vision.

Beavers have poor eyesight, but an acute sense of smell.

My mother's acute senses sometimes surprise me, but now they chide me.  (source) Veronica Roth, Divergent, 2011

And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness.  (source) John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

I'd never felt anything so acute, so electrifying.  (source) Tara Westover, Educated, 2018

She looked at me with a kind of fresh acuteness.  (source) J. D. Salinger, For Esme:--with Love and Squalor, 1950

My superacute raptor hearing couldn't help registering his chuckles outside.†  (source) James Patterson, Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, 2007

I'm so acutely aware of everything about him in this moment that I'm almost positive I could pick his thumbprint out of a lineup.  (source) Colleen Hoover, Hopeless, 2013

...her senses were more acute,  (source) Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate, 1992

Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril.  (source) Jack London, The Call of the Wild, 1903

He's immune to virtually every disease known and has superacute reflexes and greatly increased strength.†  (source) James Patterson, Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, 2007

He was suddenly acutely conscious of the actions of other people.  (source) Robert Cormier, I Am the Cheese, 1977

Although she has come back to me now in absolute clarity, acute in every detail, the outline of her hooded shape against the lights from the bridge, the red of her heart from within the cloak, I know this didn't happen.  (source) Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye, 1988

All the angles of that triangle are acute.

All I saw was the pole, bent at an acute angle.  (source) Edward Bloor, Tangerine, 1997

Two long panes of chest-high, dirty, gray-tinted Plexiglas lean against each other at an acute angle, held up on the other side by the wooden wall.  (source) John Green, Paper Towns, 2008

He has just cut off the end of the pole at an acute angle to make it into a spear.  (source) Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, 1992

I was all bony elbows and acute angles, like a jigsaw puzzle piece that can only go in the middle, waiting for the others to fit around it to make it whole.  (source) Sarah Dessen, That Summer, 1997

It appears to widen into a narrow fan, an acute triangle of red light whose base encompasses all of Y.T.'s torso.†  (source) Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, 1992

Miraculously, I kept my feet; but only by dint of superhuman contortions during which I was alternately bent forward like a skier going over a jump, or leaning backward at such an acute angle I thought my backbone was going to snap.  (source) Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf, 1963

Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up.†  (source) Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1902

After asking for, and getting, directions from an elf who was sitting in the branches of a nearby tree, Eragon and Saphira continued through the woods until they arrived at a small one-room house grown out of the bole of a fir tree that stood at an acute angle, as if a constant wind pressed against it.  (source) Christopher Paolini, Brisingr, 2008

At night, one could distinguish nothing of all that mass of buildings, except the black indentation of the roofs, unrolling their chain of acute angles round the place; for one of the radical differences between the cities of that time, and the cities of the present day, lay in the façades which looked upon the places and streets, and which were then gables.†  (source) Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1831

She kept her foot permanently on the accelerator, and took every corner at an acute angle.  (source) Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca, 1938

Make its contour float in a winter's mist which clings to its numerous chimneys; drown it in profound night and watch the odd play of lights and shadows in that sombre labyrinth of edifices; cast upon it a ray of light which shall vaguely outline it and cause to emerge from the fog the great heads of the towers; or take that black silhouette again, enliven with shadow the thousand acute angles of the spires and gables, and make it start out more toothed than a shark's jaw against a copper-colored western sky,—and then compare.†  (source) Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1831

O'Dell leaned back at an acute angle and shoveled a little sugar in.†  (source) Homer Hickam, October Sky, 1998