All 23 Uses

caustic
in
The Magic Mountain
(Edited)

He was a small, skinny, clean-shaven man, and so ugly—caustically, one could almost say corrosively, ugly—that the cousins were astonished.
Chpt 6.2

caustically = harshly
Somehow everything about him was caustic: the aquiline nose dominating the face; the small, pursed mouth; the pale gray eyes behind thick lenses in the light frames of his glasses; even his studied silence, from which it was clear that his words would be caustic and logical.
Chpt 6.2

caustic = harsh
Somehow everything about him was caustic: the aquiline nose dominating the face; the small, pursed mouth; the pale gray eyes behind thick lenses in the light frames of his glasses; even his studied silence, from which it was clear that his words would be caustic and logical.
Chpt 6.2
As was the custom here, he wore neither hat nor overcoat, but he was very well dressed: his suit was dark blue flannel with white pinstripes, its cut elegant, understated, stylish—which did not escape the scrutiny of the cousins' sophisticated eyes, though their gaze was immediately countered by an even sharper, more caustic inspection of their persons.
Chpt 6.2

caustic = critical or harsh
Naphta's words had been caustic, apodictic—even though it was he who had defended a larger definition of freedom.
Chpt 6.2 *

caustic = harsh or critical
He sat silent, his skinny hands in his lap, a caustic look on his face.
Chpt 6.3
Naphta sat silent, his eyes sparkling, a caustic look on his face.
Chpt 6.3
So ended Naphta's caustic oration.
Chpt 6.3
A caustic, tormented spirituality drifted toward him in those words; probing deeper, he discovered both knowledge and a maliciously elegant mode of thought—all the more surprising, given the young man's tattered exterior.
Chpt 6.6

caustic = critical or harsh
In any case, whenever the Italian warmed to that cause, Naphta would champion a Christian world citizenship, claim every land and no land as his fatherland, and caustically recall the phrase of Nickel, a former general of the order, who declared patriotism "a plague and the surest death of Christian charity."
Chpt 6.6

caustically = sarcastically
At the moment, however, their current discussion consumed his total attention, because Naphta now went on to discuss in caustic fashion the general biases that induced humanists to honor health on principle and dishonor and belittle sickness whenever possible—a position, however, that revealed a remarkable and almost praiseworthy self-abnegation on Herr Settembrini's part, since he was himself ill.
Chpt 6.6

caustic = harsh or critical
In caustic words, Naphta forbade Herr Settembrini to call himself an "individualist," because he denied the polarity of God and nature and defined the question of humanity, the problem of man's interior conflict, as simply the conflict between the individual and larger social units, and so was wedded to a bourgeois morality that was tied to life, understood life as an end in itself, saw its sole purpose in unheroic utility, and viewed all moral law as invested in the state;
Chpt 6.6

caustic = harsh
And then there was caustic little Naphta, who was bound to strict vows—and such a freethinker that he came close to being a libertine himself, making the Italian look like the dupe of virtue, so to speak.
Chpt 6.6

caustic = critical or harsh
True, you're a windbag and organ-grinder, but you mean well, mean better than that caustic little Jesuit and terrorist, that Spanish torturer and flogger with his flashing glasses.
Chpt 6.7
...and bound up with the idea and image were all sorts of gloomy, caustically Jesuitical, and misanthropic notions, the torture and corporal punishment that were such abominations to Herr Settembrini, who with his barrel organ and ragione could only appear ridiculous in his opposition to them.
Chpt 6.7

caustically = harshly
...whereas on more than one occasion Naphta had shown a caustic disregard of Virgil and of the Latin poets in general—and promptly and maliciously used this opportunity to do so again.
Chpt 6.8

caustic = harsh
Perhaps he felt that under the circumstances Naphta 'was temporarily in a superior position; perhaps it was this momentary supremacy of his foe that he had been attempting to counter with lively expressions of grief and mat now silenced him—and kept him silent when Leo Naphta exploited his fleeting advantage by declaring with caustic sententiousness: "The error of literary men is to believe that only the Spirit makes us respectable."
Chpt 6.8

caustic = sarcastic
Little Naphta might have made use of it, but it would have been a usurpation, mere caustic chatter, whereas in Peeperkorn's mouth the thunderbolt was trumpeted forth with its full crashing, booming, biblical impact.
Chpt 7.3

caustic = critical
Granted, she did not have to deal here with Herr Lodovico's fundamental repudiation of her character, and the essentials for conversation were somewhat more favorable, so that the two of them, Clavdia and the caustic little man, would sometimes move away from the others to talk: about books, about questions of political philosophy, where they found agreement in radical answers; and Hans Castorp sometimes ingenuously joined in as well.
Chpt 7.4

caustic = harsh or critical
Whereupon Naphta felt obliged to offer cold, caustic proof—and his proof was almost blindingly incontrovertible—that the Church was the embodiment of the religious, ascetic ideal, and at her core not even remotely an advocate or supporter of forces whose concern was to maintain themselves: worldly education and civil authority, for instance; rather, from time immemorial the Church had inscribed radical overthrow upon her banner—destruction, root and branch.
Chpt 7.4

caustic = harsh
…was reminded of that humanist's spare garret with its lectern and rush-bottom chairs and water carafe; whereas Naphta, after first claiming that lust could never be without guilt and that nature should, if you please, have a bad conscience in the presence of the Spirit, went on to refute the nihilism of the ascetic principle by defining the Church's policy of spiritual indulgence as "love"—and Hans Castorp found the word "love" sounded very odd coming from caustic, gaunt little Naphta.
Chpt 7.4

caustic = critical or harsh
He, too, was often confined to bed; the cracked-porcelain sound in his voice rattled more loudly now when he spoke, and as his fever rose, he spoke more—and more caustically and cuttingly than ever.
Chpt 7.9

caustically = harshly or in a critical manner
Naphta's crude end, that terrorist deed committed by a caustically desperate antagonist, had been a terrible blow to his sensitive nature; he had been unable to get over it, had been frail and subject to fainting spells ever since.
Chpt 7.10

caustically = harshly

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Grouped by 2 Meanings

Definitions:

(1) (caustic as in: a caustic chemical)
damaging or harsh -- often of a corrosive chemical like a strong acid
(2) (caustic as in: a caustic person)
sarcastic, critical, or harsh
(3) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)

caustic in The Magic Mountain (Edited)

caustic
in
The Magic Mountain
(Edited)