harsh
adjective
- “wild and harsh country full of hot sand and cactus”
- “the nomad life is rough and hazardous”
disagreeable to the senses
- “the harsh cry of a blue jay”
- “harsh cognac”
- “the harsh white light makes you screw up your eyes”
- “harsh irritating smoke filled the hallway”
used of circumstances (especially weather) that cause suffering
- “brutal weather”
- “northern winters can be cruel”
- “a cruel world”
- “a harsh climate”
- “a rigorous climate”
- “unkind winters”
sharply disagreeable; rigorous
- “the harsh facts of court delays”
- “an abrasive character”
Origin
From Middle English harsk, harisk(e), hask(e), herris. Century derived the term from Old Norse harskr (whence Danish harsk (“rancid”), dialectal Norwegian hersk, Swedish härsk, Swedish härsken); the Middle English Dictionary derives it from that and Middle Low German harsch (“rough”, literally “hairy”) (whence also German harsch), from haer (“hair”), from Old Saxon hār, from Proto-West Germanic *hār; the Oxford Dictionary of English derives it from Middle Low German alone.
Phrases
- harsh down
- harsh Indian paintbrush
- harsh mistress
- harsh noise
- harsh one's mellow
Related words
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.