Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Unsparing, harsh, or strict, as in treatment of others: a severe critic.
- adj. Marked by or requiring strict adherence to rigorous standards or high principles: a severe code of behavior.
- adj. Stern or forbidding, as in manner or appearance: spoke in a severe voice.
- adj. Extremely plain in substance or style: a severe black dress.
- adj. Causing great discomfort, damage, or distress: a severe pain; a severe storm.
- adj. Very dangerous or harmful; grave or grievous: severe mental illness.
- adj. Extremely difficult to perform or endure; trying: a severe test of our loyalty.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Serious or earnest in feeling, manner, or appearance; without levity; sedate; grave; austere; not light, lively, or cheerful.
- Very strict in judgment, discipline, or ac tion; not mild or indulgent; rigorous; harsh; rigid; merciless: as, severe criticism; severe punishment.
- Strictly regulated by rule or principle; exactly conforming to a standard; rigidly methodical; hence, in lit., art, etc., avoiding, or not exhibiting or permitting, unnecessary or florid ornament, amplification, or the like; restrained; not luxuriant; always keeping measure; pure in line and form; chaste in conception; subordinated to a high ideal: as, a severe style of writing; the severest style of Greek architecture; the severe school of German music.
- Sharp; afflictive; distressing; violent; extreme: as, severe pain, anguish, or torture; severe cold; a severe winter.
- Difficult to be endured; trying; critical; rigorous: as, a severe test; a severe examination.
- Synonyms and Harsh, Strict, etc. (see austere), unrelenting.
- Exact, accurate, unadorned, chaste.
- Cutting, keen, biting.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Serious in feeling or manner; sedate; grave; austere; not light, lively, or cheerful.
- adj. Very strict in judgment, discipline, or government; harsh; not mild or indulgent; rigorous.
- adj. 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.
- adj. Sharp; afflictive; distressing; violent; extreme.
- adj. Difficult to be endured; exact; critical; rigorous.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. unsparing and uncompromising in discipline or judgment
- adj. severely simple
- adj. intensely or extremely bad or unpleasant in degree or quality
- adj. causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm
- adj. very strong or vigorous
- adj. very bad in degree or extent
Etymologies
- From Latin severus ("severe, serious, grave in demeanor"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin sevērus, serious, strict. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I opened up Firefox this evening to a severe weather alert from ForecastFox…which surprised me, given that it’s lovely weather: a bit of clouds, maybe some rain later, but nothing I’d call *severe*!”
so that’s a little crazy - emergency weblog; or: epersonae; or: elaine nelson
“For example, we've estimated the distribution of a strong ground shaking because it's not always the epicenter, it's distributed along the fault, and we can estimate how much shaking actually occurred, and we estimated that close to three-fourths of a million people experienced vital to extreme shaking with very heavy damage and an additional 2 million people on top of that experienced what we term severe shaking, also expecting heavy damage.”
“The phrase "severe reality distortion field" is probably not one you bump into every day.”
“He defended government actions, saying they are necessary to avoid what he called a severe disruption to the financial markets.”
“It's not what I call severe sickness, but he is coughing and blowing his nose.”
“Pressure for his resignation has been building since Monday, when a government commission blamed Mr. Olmert for what it called his severe failures during Israel's war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas last summer.”
“They say they will work with what they call severe flaws in the plan to change them during the legislative process.”
“That means we could see 20 or more tornadoes, two of which could be what we call severe tornadoes or a very large wind event and that's one of the big things that we're concerned about today, Rob, is that duratio (ph), as we call them or a large-scale wind event that can cause miles and miles of damage.”
“We spoke to one leader yesterday who saw Robertson's remarks and the result of it as what he called a severe blow.”
“WASHINGTON AP–The United States expressed concern Wednesday over what it termed severe violations of religious freedom in six countries: Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Sudan.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘severe’.
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 99 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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My woRdz...
layover, deet, etiquette, fondling, snog, dead letter office, lenient, severe, banter, grapple, sentiment, slacks and 1 more...
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WordMasters Blue Division Set 2
verge, taper, lucrative, prig, ransack, wizened, martinet, flucuate, verbose, enigma, subdue, fertile and 12 more...
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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Lillyjames's Words
uncategorized words that I enjoy
replete, unabashed, dauntless, ubiquitous, fanged, blush, flush, murmur, mercurial, dishevelled, decrepit, raven and 146 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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maygra
apropos, advantageous, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, perihelion, mortmain, solitudinous, mediastinus, asumbrative, traveler and 498 more...
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National Library Agenda Summit
nla2006, summit, agenda, library, ala, diversity, education, learning, continuous, scan, environmental, plan and 646 more...
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reginaterra's Words
purl, blow, squish, andean, generality, adaptation, lush, pack, filter, acquiesce, abstraction, sweet and 508 more...
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minneapolitan's Words
hissyfit, fussbudget, aghast, lament, trichinellosis, tranche, decadent, aspersion, pejorative, aniline, galoshes, accede and 200 more...
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Miss Sunshine
she's such a joy.
bereaved, bitter, cheerless, dejected, depressed, despairing, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, downcast and 405 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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Stern
Nouns meaning stern
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Words with Method to their Madness
Patterned words! Any word that alternates vowels and consonants with no consonants next to each other, and no vowels next to each other. (And a letter limit of no less than 5)
eleven, every, vowel, lemon, alibi, hopes, limit, cures, caravan, emirate, united arab emirates, honorificabilitud... and 114 more...
Tweets
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