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vocabulary
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asperity
in a sentence

show 47 more with this conextual meaning
  • "This isn't about Magnus," said Jocelyn with asperity.†   (source)
  • But should the present attempt to negotiate fail, then the President must address the Congress in a style "cautious, solemn, grave, and void of asperity," declared McHenry—Hamilton also having told him this was what he was to say.†   (source)
  • That was what she wanted—the asperity in his voice reproving her.†   (source)
  • He replied with some asperity, "It might surprise you what them beasts can pull through."†   (source)
  • "Allow me to point out, my man," the police officer rejoined with asperity, "that just now it's you who're troubling the peace of others."†   (source)
  • "Now where," he answered with asperity, "where except in the great tea shop on the main street of the town?"†   (source)
  • You must have gone off your head," said Mrs. Peniston with asperity.†   (source)
  • That's what I said," replied Stillwell, with asperity.†   (source)
  • May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?" asked Holmes with some asperity.†   (source)
  • "Would you make that remark to an English lady?" she enquired with soft asperity.†   (source)
  • "I wonder you remember those times, Esther," she returned with her old asperity.†   (source)
  • "Your father may have been able to change countries," said Mrs. Munt with asperity, "and that may or may not be a good thing.†   (source)
  • Jim Fletcher attached himself to the stranger, and now both respect and friendliness tempered his asperity.†   (source)
  • It is worthy of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity.†   (source)
  • Soft scene, daring demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon of defence must be prepared — I whetted my tongue: as he reached me, I asked with asperity, "whom he was going to marry now?"†   (source)
  • The only difficulty in proceeding lay in not sliding too fast down an incline of about forty-five degrees; happily certain asperities and a few blisterings here and there formed steps, and we descended, letting our baggage slip before us from the end of a long rope.†   (source)
  • Mr Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on being thus corrected, and demanded with much asperity what she meant; which she was about to state, when a female voice proceeding from a perpendicular staircase at the end of the passage, inquired who was wanted.†   (source)
  • "Not Harriet's equal!" exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, "No, he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation.†   (source)
  • As there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, and shades of colour in black itself, so, even in the asperity of Mrs Clennam's demeanour towards all the rest of humanity and towards Little Dorrit, there was a fine gradation.†   (source)
  • "Hold thy tongue, naughty child!" answered her mother, with an asperity that she had never permitted to herself before.†   (source)
  • Her tone, as she uttered the exclamation, had a plaintive and really exquisite melody thrilling through it, yet without subduing a certain something which an obtuse auditor might still have mistaken for asperity.†   (source)
  • That humid and congenial atmosphere which commonly adorned the view, veiling its harshness, and softening its asperities, had disappeared, the northern air poured across the waste of water so harsh and unmingled, that nothing was left to be conjectured by the eye, or fashioned by the fancy.†   (source)
  • "How strange," continued the king, with some asperity; "the police think that they have disposed of the whole matter when they say, 'A murder has been committed,' and especially so when they can add, 'And we are on the track of the guilty persons.'†   (source)
  • On the next day at breakfast, when Miss Osborne, with the asperity of her age and character, ventured to make some remark reflecting slightingly upon the Major's appearance or behaviour—the master of the house interrupted her.†   (source)
  • Tom relished this tune less than any that he had preceded it, for it began to wake up a sort of echo in his conscience; so he interrupted and said with decision, though without asperity, that he was not in a situation to help her, and wasn't going to do it.†   (source)
  • As for the chance episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage bans, dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions, of churches or chapels, marriages, etc., the Bishop levied them on the wealthy with all the more asperity, since he bestowed them on the needy.†   (source)
  • —yet are they clearly wholesome, the more especially when one doth assuage the asperities of their nature by admixture of the tranquilizing juice of the wayward cabbage—†   (source)
  • But he was set right there by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen.†   (source)
  • "Have you conversed freely with the girl?" the Sergeant demanded quickly, and with some asperity of manner.†   (source)
  • It was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him so much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking; and withal had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities of his temper; that he had neither time nor inclination to be very critical upon her behaviour and deportment.†   (source)
  • Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a doctrine which may be summed up as follows:— "Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation.†   (source)
  • Perhaps something of what he thought was expressed in his countenance, for the sick man, turning towards him with great asperity, demanded to know if he waited for a receipt.†   (source)
  • The brown, grave gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, who was so frank and considerate in his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was something that reminded her of his mother, with the great difference that she was earnest in asperity and he in gentleness.†   (source)
  • A little shocked, therefore, at the interpretation that had been put on his words, he rejoined with some of the asperity of the man, though rebuked by a consciousness of not having done his own wishes justice.†   (source)
  • This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her so much to think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her asperities exceedingly.†   (source)
  • "I can dress the wound, yes," I said with considerable asperity.†   (source)
  • "Just as well, since I'm apparently so bad at it," I observed with some asperity.†   (source)
  • "Just as well," I said, with some asperity, and he smiled briefly.†   (source)
  • "Don't be ridiculous," I said with some asperity.†   (source)
  • In the question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe's hearing brought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic.†   (source)
  • Needless to say the fumes of his recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way foreign to his sober state.†   (source)
  • I hesitate not to submit it to the decision of any candid and honest adversary of the proposed government, whether language can furnish epithets of too much asperity, for so shameless and so prostitute an attempt to impose on the citizens of America.†   (source)
  • I seek wisdom tempered with charity, And I'm not one of those prudes whose asperity Is such that they fight for virtue tooth and nail, And scratch a man's eyes out for being male.†   (source)
  • For as that stone which by the asperity, and irregularity of Figure, takes more room from others, than it selfe fills; and for the hardnesse, cannot be easily made plain, and thereby hindereth the building, is by the builders cast away as unprofitable, and troublesome: so also, a man that by asperity of Nature, will strive to retain those things which to himselfe are superfluous, and to others necessary; and for the stubbornness of his Passions, cannot be corrected, is to be left, or…†   (source)
  • …her my message; if she is agitated and disturbed at hearing my name; if she cannot rest upon her cushion, shouldst thou haply find her seated in the sumptuous state chamber proper to her rank; and should she be standing, observe if she poises herself now on one foot, now on the other; if she repeats two or three times the reply she gives thee; if she passes from gentleness to austerity, from asperity to tenderness; if she raises her hand to smooth her hair though it be not disarranged.†   (source)
  • Whence comes it, that in Christendome there has been, almost from the time of the Apostles, such justling of one another out of their places, both by forraign, and Civill war? such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune, and every little eminence of that of other men? and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark, Felicity, if it be not Night amongst us, or at least a Mist? wee are therefore yet in the Dark.†   (source)
  • I have addressed myself purely to your judgments, and have studiously avoided those asperities which are too apt to disgrace political disputants of all parties, and which have been not a little provoked by the language and conduct of the opponents of the Constitution.†   (source)
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