aˈsperəd.ē-, əˈ-, -ətē, -i noun
( -es )
Etymology: alteration (influenced by Middle French asperité — from Latin asperitat-, asperitas, from asper rough + -itat-, -itas -ity — or by Latin asperitas ) of Middle English asprete, from Old French aspreté, from aspre rough (from Latin asper ) + -té -ty
1. : a characteristic making for hardship : rigor , severity
the path of beauty is not soft and smooth, but full of harshness and asperity — Havelock Ellis
2.
a.
(1) : roughness of surface (as of a leaf) : unevenness
(2) asperities plural : rough places : excrescences
ultramicroscopic asperities … upon the solid surface — J.W.McBain
b. obsolete : roughness to the taste : sourness , tartness
c. : roughness or harshness of sound : raucousness
the elderly ladies in his audience had been shocked by the asperities of the new style in music — Aaron Copland
3. : a characteristic making for bitterness : roughness of manner or of temper
he repented of his asperity , however, when he saw Shiloh droop his head and wither visibly into sadness — Elinor Wylie
it caused him a passing asperity to observe her lay places for three — A.J.Cronin
: severity
the portrait … on the wall, whose painted eyes, it seemed, were now inhumanly surveying them … with some little asperity — Walter de la Mare
: tartness
a little asperity was in her voice — George Meredith