SEVERE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Severe

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/səvˈɪr/ Listen

adjective

Severe adj. (compar. severer; superl. severest)

1.

Serious in feeling or manner; sedate; grave; austere; not light, lively, or cheerful. "Your looks alter, as your subject does, From kind to fierce, from wanton to severe."

2.

Very strict in judgment, discipline, or government; harsh; not mild or indulgent; rigorous; as, severe criticism; severe punishment. "Custody severe." "Come! you are too severe a moraler." "Let your zeal, if it must be expressed in anger, be always more severe against thyself than against others."

3.

Rigidly methodical, or adherent to rule or principle; exactly conformed to a standard; not allowing or employing unneccessary ornament, amplification, etc.; strict; said of style, argument, etc. "Restrained by reason and severe principles." "The Latin, a most severe and compendious language."

4.

Sharp; afflictive; distressing; violent; extreme; as, severe pain, anguish, fortune; severe cold.

5.

Difficult to be endured; exact; critical; rigorous; as, a severe test.

Synonyms: Strict; grave; austere; stern; morose; rigid; exact; rigorous; hard; rough; harsh; censorious; tart; acrimonious; sarcastic; satirical; cutting; biting; keen; bitter; cruel. See Strict.

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Etymology of 'Severe'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Severe" Quotes from Famous Books

... Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. ...

— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... thought of the welcome Thedori had given us at our first interview with him, when he had exhorted us to land in safety so that we might enjoy the comforts of life and recruit our strength, in order, as it subsequently transpired, that he might betray us, I felt that no reprisals could be too severe against one ...

— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... series of those falsehoods which only the powerful can venture on, but which bring ruin upon the weak, Clement brought about the advance of the Germano-Spanish army under Bourbon and Frundsberg (1527). It is certain that the Cabinet of Charles V intended to inflict on him a severe castigation, and that it could not calculate beforehand how far the zeal of its unpaid hordes would carry them. It would have been vain to attempt to enlist men in Germany without paying any bounty, if it had ...

— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... capital expedient for escaping castigation (which is never very severe). "I found this cane myself. It was lying on the ground in the compound, and I am going to take it to the teacher." Chorus of "Why?" "Because," and the Elf looked elfish, "if I give it to him with my own hands, how will he cane my hands with it? His heart will not be hard enough ...

— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... intellectual interests such as are implied in this list is the more significant when we remember that it was carried on in the scanty leisure of a life of labor so severe that it all but broke the poet's health, and probably left permanent marks on his physique. Yet he had energy left for still other avocations. It was when he was no more than fifteen that he first experienced the twin passions that came to dominate his life, ...

— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

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