All 12 Uses of

abrupt
in
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis

Don't you think there's a lot of these women that go out for all these movements and so on that sacrifice——" After his remarks upon suffrage he abruptly questioned her about herself.†
Chpt 2

abruptly = suddenly and unexpectedly

When Carol abruptly turned on the lights in the embattled living-room, half of the company were sitting back against the walls, where they had craftily remained throughout the engagement, but in the middle of the floor Kennicott was wrestling with Harry Haydock—their collars torn off, their hair in their eyes; and the owlish Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh was retreating from Juanita Haydock, and gulping with unaccustomed laughter.†
Chpt 6

As soon as Carol was convinced that even in this imprisoned North, spring could exist again, the snow came down as abruptly as a paper storm in a theater; the northwest gale flung it up in a half blizzard; and with her hope of a glorified town went hope of summer meadows.†
Chpt 11

He helped her down the bank to the edge of the lake but dropped her hand abruptly, and as they sat on a willow log and he brushed her sleeve, he delicately moved over and murmured, "Oh, excuse me—accident."†
Chpt 21

He burrowed his eyes in the dwarf blue pillow to escape the electric light, then sat up abruptly, small and frail in his woolly nightdrawers, his floss of brown hair wild, the pillow clutched to his breast.†
Chpt 23

He heard the swing-couch creak as she sat up abruptly, peered, then leaned back and pretended to relax.†
Chpt 25 *

Her rather cheap sport ended abruptly as Vida cried, with contorted face, "What do you know about the thoughts in hearts?†
Chpt 31

The lights of the thrumming car grew magically; were upon them; abruptly stopped.†
Chpt 33

Dave Dyer and Sam Clark were as cordial as she had been fancying; but wasn't there an impersonal abruptness in the "H' are yuh?" of Chet Dashaway?†
Chpt 7

He suddenly had in her eyes the heroism of a wireless operator on a ship in a collision; of an explorer, fever-clawed, deserted by his bearers, but going on—jungle—going—— At six, when the light faltered in as through ground glass and bleakly identified the chairs as gray rectangles, she heard his step on the porch; heard him at the furnace: the rattle of shaking the grate, the slow grinding removal of ashes, the shovel thrust into the coal-bin, the abrupt clatter of the coal as it flew into the fire-box, the fussy regulation of drafts—the daily sounds of a Gopher Prairie life, now first appealing to her as something brave and enduring, many-colored and free.†
Chpt 15

An ancient stone mill in Maryland, at the turn of the road, between rocky brook and abrupt hills.†
Chpt 19

Definitions:

(1) (abrupt as in: an abrupt change)
sudden and unexpected

or (less commonly): characterized by sudden changes or at a steep angle
(2) (abrupt as in: she is abrupt)
rude or unfriendly because of using too few words or moving too quickly