Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In musical acoustics. relative elevation of pitch in a sound or tone, produced by greater frequency of vibration: opposed to gravity. The higher the pitch, the greater is the acuteness.
- noun The quality of being acute.
- noun The faculty of nice discernment or perception; quickness or keenness of the senses or understanding.
- noun In rhetoric or music, sharpness or elevation of sound.
- noun In pathology, violence of a disease, which brings it speedily to a crisis.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality of being acute or pointed; sharpness.
- noun The faculty of nice discernment or perception; acumen; keenness; sharpness; sensitiveness; -- applied to the senses, or the understanding. By
acuteness of feeling, we perceive small objects or slight impressions: byacuteness of intellect, we discern nice distinctions. - noun Shrillness; high pitch; -- said of sounds.
- noun (Med.) Violence of a disease, which brings it speedily to a crisis.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The quality of being
acute or pointed; as, the acuteness of an angle. - noun The faculty of nice
discernment orperception ;sensitiveness ; – applied to thesenses , or theunderstanding . By acuteness of feeling, we perceive small objects or slight impressions: by acuteness of intellect, we discern nice distinctions. - noun
Shrillness ; high pitch; – said of sounds. - noun Violence of a disease, which brings it speedily to a crisis.
- noun Shrewdness, quickness of mind
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a quick and penetrating intelligence
- noun the quality of having a sharp edge or point
- noun a sensitivity that is keen and highly developed
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word acuteness.
Examples
-
I may have been ever so much an exception in acuteness of observation, powers of comparison, and abnormal self-consciousness; none the less were my thoughts and conduct typical of the attitude of the intelligent immigrant child toward American institutions.
The Promised Land 1912
-
Her sense of touch has sensibly increased during the year, and has gained in acuteness and delicacy.
The Story of My Life Annie Sullivan 1905
-
Anxiety, hope, and even fatigue itself, had imparted to his body the fictitious strength of fever, and to his intellect the unhealthy acuteness which is so often the result of intense mental effort.
Monsieur Lecoq �mile Gaboriau 2003
-
Prudence -- but not the acuteness which is sometimes confused with prudence -- is incompatible with incontinence, which is least curable when the outcome of weakness.
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy Various 1909
-
Anxiety, hope, and even fatigue itself, had imparted to his body the fictitious strength of fever, and to his intellect the unhealthy acuteness which is so often the result of intense mental effort.
Monsieur Lecoq ��mile Gaboriau 1852
-
Agitated by these reflections, which put sleep at defiance, Esther continued at her post, listening with that sort of acuteness which is termed instinct in the animals a few degrees below her in the scale of intelligence, for any of those noises which might indicate the approach of footsteps.
The Prairie James Fenimore Cooper 1820
-
He shaved hairs from the back of his hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a slight inequality in its edge somewhere.
Chapter 9 2010
-
It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.
Chapter 4 2010
-
It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.
Chapter 3 2010
-
Chamber of Commerce: "The Americans, with their vast and almost incalculable resources, their acuteness and enterprise, and their huge population, which will probably be 100,000,000 in twenty years, together with the plan they have adopted for putting accumulated wealth into great cooperative syndicates or trusts for the purpose of carrying on this great commercial warfare, are the most formidable ... rivals to be feared."
ruzuzu commented on the word acuteness
Compare gravity.
April 25, 2017