Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Severe   /səvˈɪr/   Listen
Severe

adjective
(compar. severer; superl. severest)
1.
Intensely or extremely bad or unpleasant in degree or quality.  Synonyms: terrible, wicked.  "A severe case of flu" , "A terrible cough" , "Under wicked fire from the enemy's guns" , "A wicked cough"
2.
Very strong or vigorous.  Synonyms: hard, knockout.  "A hard left to the chin" , "A knockout punch" , "A severe blow"
3.
Severely simple.  Synonyms: austere, stark, stern.
4.
Unsparing and uncompromising in discipline or judgment.  Synonym: spartan.  "A hefty six-footer with a rather severe mien" , "A strict disciplinarian" , "A Spartan upbringing"
5.
Causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm.  Synonyms: dangerous, grave, grievous, life-threatening, serious.  "A grave situation" , "A grave illness" , "Grievous bodily harm" , "A serious wound" , "A serious turn of events" , "A severe case of pneumonia" , "A life-threatening disease"
6.
Very bad in degree or extent.  "The house suffered severe damage"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Severe" Quotes from Famous Books



... have, in our dreams," answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde

... done a great wrong," replied Mrs. Hosmer. "You deserve severe punishment, but I shall not decide about that now. For the next few days you may show your penitence by doing all you can to make up to this dear child for your past great unkindness. She must stay in bed for a day or two, and I shall have the doctor ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... doctrine! I have read books enough, and observed and conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly-cultured minds, too, in my time; but I assure you, I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of the poor uneducated men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe, yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends and neighbors, than I ever yet met with ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... could be had. Whenever there was sickness in the place, she was an untiring nurse; and, at one time, for some nine months, she took the office of postman, and walked daily some nine miles through a severe winter. The fatigue and exposure had broken down her health, and made her an old woman before her time. At last, in a lucky hour, the Doctor came to hear of her praiseworthy struggles, and gave her the Rectory washing, which ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... smallest was that of the family of a chemist who had been studying the subject and had learned something of the excessive amounts of food which many people with light muscular labor consume. This dietary supplied 3,200 calories of energy per man a day. The largest was that of brickmakers at very severe work in Massachusetts. They lived in a boarding house managed by their employers, who had evidently found that men at hard muscular work out of doors needed ample nourishment to do the largest amount of work. The food ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... Pittsburgh, March 2, 1838. His parents were poor, his father being a carpenter and he himself built the little log cabin in which the family lived. When David was a baby only a few months old, he lost the sight of one eye by inflammation resulting from a severe cold. When about three years old, he noiselessly followed his sister into the cellar one day, intending in a spirit of mischief to blow out the candle she was carrying. Just as he leaned over to do it, she, unconscious that he was there, raised up, thrusting the candle in her hand right ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... every year. To do so, however, they must labor incessantly and give the land thorough cultivation. Irrigation with them is not opening the gates of a sluiceway and letting the water flow over the land. It means severe labor, pumping the water up from the ditches, canals, or river, in which the surface of the water may be ten or twenty feet below the surface of the land. The pumps are the same kind that the people used in the days of the Pharaohs, and the methods of cultivation ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... luxury, lay the strange-looking individual already mentioned, on the gorgeous bed. She was apparently an East Indian; and, though possessed of comely features, she was even darker than the fair Hindoos we often see in this country. The sickness under which she laboured, and which appeared to be very severe, had rendered her thin and cadaverous-looking—making the balls of her brilliant eyes assume the appearance of being protruded, and imparting to all her features a sharp, prominent aspect, the very reverse of the natural Indian type; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... in the stranger increased. He had a fine face, cut clearly, and of a somewhat severe and melancholy cast. Always he gazed straight before him, and his mind seemed to be far from the people in the car. It was obvious that he was not the ordinary traveler, and the boy spent some time in trying to guess his identity. Then ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse. Winter is of a more heroic cast, and addresses the intellect. The severe studies and disciplines come easier in winter. One imposes larger tasks upon himself, and is less tolerant ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... short season afterward, only to meet again at dinner, with a warm sense of pleasure in each other's company. The young man always insisted that his grandmother was the most charming woman in the world, and it can be imagined what the grandmother thought of Tom. She was only severe with him because he had given no signs of wishing to marry, but she was tolerant of all delay, so long as she could now and then keep the subject fresh in his mind. It was not a moment to speak again of the great question that afternoon, and she had ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... to assume that by being severe with others I exculpate myself. I go on to the bench, and deliver sentence upon my brother, when my proper place is in the dock. And this is the subtlety of the snare, that I regard my criticisms and condemnations ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... are considered admirable; but he has lately commenced painting in oil—with considerable success. His etchings, of which he has published about one hundred, are in general masterly; but perhaps they are a little too metallic and severe. His observation of nature is at once ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... to the established order, and never doubted the literal inspiration of the Scriptures. They also believed in the divine origin of the prayer-book, a measure of credulity which, although commendable, is, I believe, not required. These parents were severe, exacting, imperious—not bad nor exactly cruel—simply "consistent." They believed that man was a worm of the dust, and stood by the traditions. They believed in the dogma of total depravity and lived up ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... temperate in his diet, and by no means a gastronome. In his long seclusion in a Buddhist cloister he had acquired habits of severe simplicity and frugality, as a preparation for the exercise of those powers of mental concentration for which he was remarkable. At these morning repasts it was his custom to detain me in conversation relating to some topic ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... sufficiently agonizing to feel that utter inactivity is forced upon him, at the very instant that his country is most in need of the services he would cheerfully render. In the last attack of the Hessians, Williams received a severe and dangerous shot wound in the groin, though he entirely recovered from its effects in due time. His career was suddenly checked, and he was doomed to languish fifteen months, before he again saw the sun shine on his freedom. The first half of his captivity, though painful enough to an ardent ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany

... "I don't think you are 'playing good;' I don't positively. I believe you are thoroughly in earnest, but I think you have been through some very severe scenes of late, sickness and watching, and death, and your nerves are completely unstrung. I don't wonder at your state of feeling, but you will get over it in a little ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... of police, known by a scarf worn under his black coat, entered the lodge. His countenance was grave, dignified, and severe. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... who succeeded to the Abyssinian throne, according to Bruce's chronology, in 1312, two or three years later, provoked by the Governor of Ifat, who had robbed and murdered one of his Mahomedan agents in the Lowlands, descended on Ifat, inflicted severe chastisement on the offenders, and removed the governor. A confederacy was then formed against the Abyssinian King by several of the Mahomedan States or chieftainships, among which Adel is conspicuous. Bruce gives ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... have been there! It would form a subject of conversation over there for many a long day to come. And then her journeys, her impressions of the continent—"Jam with your meat, my dear!"—and such clean dressing-rooms in Germany; very severe managers, though: gee, harder than Pas. But very good to her, all the same. The Battenberg at Leipzig: nothing but leading turns; and she had topped the bill at Leipzig! And to see all those people eating, during the show, when you were hungry yourself, had a very ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... output. The exports from 1901 to 1907 fluctuated between 50,000 to 200,000 head. The great plains of the north are in the hands of the large landowners, but on the coast foot-hills, where pasturage abounds, small parcels of land can be purchased. On the great plateau the droughts at times cause severe loss, and I have on one occasion observed cattle dying about the plain of thirst, and others whose lives were only saved by feeding them with pieces of succulent palm-stem. On these arid plains water is generally encountered in the subsoil in wells of not extreme depths, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... extenuations or excuses may be alleged, all must allow that his course in Dumfries was on the whole a downward one, and must concur, however reluctantly, in the conclusion at which Lockhart, while decrying the severe judgments of Currie, Heron, and others, is forced by truth to come, that "the untimely death of Burns was, it is too probable, hastened by his own intemperances and imprudences." To inquire minutely, what was ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... antagonist with the fury, the activity, and the vindictive purpose of an incensed tiger-cat. But when could rage encounter science and temper? Robin Oig again went down in the unequal contest; and as the blow was necessarily a severe one, he lay motionless on the floor of the kitchen. The landlady ran to offer some aid, but Mr. Fleecebumpkin would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various

... the dish on the table and come back presently," said Fraulein Rottenmeier with a severe expression of face. Sebastian disappeared on the spot. "As for you, Adelaide, I see I shall have to teach you the first rules of behavior," continued the lady-housekeeper with a sigh. "I will begin by explaining to you how you are to conduct yourself ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... the Temple Church in London, when (1585) Richard Hooker was appointed to be Master of the Temple. Travers had been a friend and favourite of Thomas Cartwright, a severe critic of the Order and Discipline of the Church of England. Travers took up the criticisms, and so attacked Hooker that the latter in self-defence wrote his Books on The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1592), wherein he replies to Cartwright's ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... entailed much stress and storm. At the time of the financial stringency, and largely as a result of it, the Board had made the first substantial advance in a teacher's salary dependent upon a so-called promotional examination, half of which was upon academic subjects entailing a long and severe preparation. The teachers resented this upon two lines of argument: first, that the scheme was unprofessional in that the teacher was advanced on her capacity as a student rather than on her professional ability; ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... which should find in her face its delicate flower. She was not very rosy, save about the lips; her eyes were grey, inclined to be green, the lashes black. As for her shape, sumptuous as her dress was, stiff and straight and severe, I ask you to believe that she had grace to fill it with life, to move at ease in it, to press it into soft and rounded lines. Her linked companions also were beauties of their day—that sleek and sleepy Nicoletta, that ruddy Guglielmotta; but they seemed ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... severe, Mrs. Anderson, but I fear you are correct. However, I can be like a guide-post, which points the way which it does not travel. Can you show Harry Walton—for that is his name—where you propose to ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... severe disease, to which the bodies of the Jews were very subject, was the Leprosy. Its signs recorded in the holy scriptures are chiefly these. Pimples arose in the skin; the hair was turned white; the plague ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... foregoing results and inferences, proceeds by relating instances of severe injury sustained by the human body, without being followed by death. These are confirmatory of his inferences from the experiments on rabbits. The instances given are—an os uteri torn off; extensive ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... a bit of more open country made a practicable connection between the centre of the Union Army at Ringgold and its left wing advancing from Cleveland. Johnston hoped that Sherman would dash himself against the walls of Rocky Face and suffer severe loss in doing so; and if the ridge was turned on the north by part of the Union Army, this wing would find itself in presence of the strong earthworks skirting Mill Creek, and would be so separated from the centre that he could reasonably hope to crush ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... development of 'The Law' in Madras. In the early days of Fort St. George the Company administered its own justice to its own people, and the court was held in a building in the Fort. Punishments in those far-off times, judicial or otherwise, were usually severe; and the Records show that even a civil servant of junior rank who gave trouble was liable to be awarded some such penalty as to sit for an hour or more on a sharp-backed 'wooden horse,' with or without weights attached ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... the Fathers: with whom he appeared to be far better acquainted than with the Apostles and Evangelists, and whose importance he seemed to consider at least equal to theirs. But now and then he gave us a sermon of a different order—what some would call a very good one; but sunless and severe: representing the Deity as a terrible taskmaster rather than a benevolent father. Yet, as I listened, I felt inclined to think the man was sincere in all he said: he must have changed his views, and become decidedly religious, gloomy and austere, yet still devout. But ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... women, some of whom were more friendly to him than others. Helen had become "his" Miss Schlegel, who scolded him and corresponded with him, and had swept down yesterday with grateful vehemence. Margaret, though not unkind, was severe and remote. He would not presume to help her, for instance. He had never liked her, and began to think that his original impression was true, and that her sister did not like her either. Helen was certainly lonely. She, who gave away so much, was receiving too ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... persuade her nuns to do so likewise. For some time she met with little encouragement. Another friar of the order of the Capuchins, to whom she opened her heart when he came to preach on Whit Sunday, was a man of no sense or tact, and urged such severe and instant reforms that the poor nuns were quite frightened. Then the prioress, whom Angelique also consulted, told her that she was not well, and excited, and that in three months' time she would think quite differently; all of which would have been true of a great many people, but was ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... like this which draws the attention of the world to topics which illustrate the union of art with literature and of literature with science, because you have a hard race to run, you have a severe competition against the attraction of external pursuits, whether those pursuits take the form of business or pleasure. It is given to you to teach lessons of the utmost importance to mankind, in maintaining the principle that no ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... great discovery was the legitimate result of his severe training and patient study, should be mentioned only to check the pretensions of presumptuous ignorance. The example of Jenner, who gave his inestimable secret, the result of twenty-two years of experiment and researches, unpurchased, to the public,—when, as was said in Parliament, he might ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... humbling himself, enjoining such a conversation as invites mercy. It restrains a man even as to the matter of dress and food, requiring him to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to hide his body in filthy garments, to afflict his soul with sorrow, to exchange for severe treatment the sins in which he indulged; for the rest to use simple things for meat and drink, that is, for the sake of the soul, and not to please the appetite: for the most part also to quicken prayer by fasts, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... the value of the music withdrew into themselves, submitting, thankfully, to its spell; others, less susceptible, gathered from the bearing of those about them that something of moment was going forward; but it was recognized by each, from the most severe English matron present down to the youngest "omnibus-boy" among the waiters, that it was a love- story which was being told to them, and that in this public place the deepest, most sacred, and most beautiful of emotions were finding ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... he said, sternly, and his voice seemed to carry as much weight and authority as that of Dr. Leacraft himself when he had occasion to administer some severe reproof, "I suppose that you are striving to annoy me in this manner in revenge for my detection of your deliberate infringement of rules last night, but your tricks have recoiled upon your own heads, although even now I will spare you any farther disgrace and punishment if you will ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... History, justly severe upon the Fronde, ought not, we think, to treat too harshly the Frondeuse of the blood-royal. Upon one delicate point of her private life the biographer cannot, unfortunately, show the same indulgence. The supreme criterion for the appreciation of certain women, and the irresistible ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... Andrew's was not calculated to inspire confidence in the decrees of the assembly, a very wholesome scheme of reform was carried through, which, had it been enforced, might have gone far to save Catholicism in Scotland. Severe laws were passed against concubinage of the clergy, their neglect of their primary duties of preaching and instructing their flocks, and against the alienation of ecclesiastical property. Measures were taken to ensure that priests ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... tone, when he speaks of his father, is always cool and critical; of his mother, on the other hand, he speaks with the feelings of a grateful son, conscious of the deep debt he owed to her.[6] His relations to her in his later years have exposed him to severe animadversion, but their mutual relations in these early years present the most attractive chapter in the record of his private life. Married at the age of seventeen to a husband approaching forty, the mother, as she ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... won't do! I don't allow that kind of language in my household." And he gave me a severe and admonishing look before going off on another and more urgent call ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... enough for me to leave him, when I feel that duty demands it. Oh, my dear Mr. Hammond! do not attempt to take from me the only staff which can carry me firmly away—do not make my trial even more severe. I must not see his face; for I will not be his wife. Instead of weakening my resolution by holding out flattering hopes of reforming him, pray for me! oh! pray for me! that I may be strengthened to flee from ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... supposed to be affected by the verification of a fossil shell, or the proving that the Maestricht "homo diluvii testis" was, after all, a monstrous eft, it became necessary to work upon Conchology, Botany, and Comparative Anatomy, with a care and a reverence, a caution and a severe induction, which had been never before applied to them; and thus gradually, in the last half-century, the whole choir of cosmical sciences have acquired a soundness, severity, and fulness, which render them, as mere intellectual exercises, as valuable to ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... not suffice to retail them all. Brahma's first attempts at the production of the forms of animated beings were as eminently unsuccessful as they were various. At one time he is said to have performed a long and severe course of ascetic devotions, to enable him to accomplish his wish; but in vain; at another, inflamed by anger and passion at his repeated failures, he sat down and wept; and from the streaming tear drops sprang into being, as his first boon, a progeny of ghosts and goblins, of an aspect ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... rosy flush of indignation mantled his cheeks, and only his habitual respect for the landed gentry (whom he was accustomed to call the backbone of England) checked him on the verge of a severe retort. As it was, he answered ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... are anxious to see you again," the lumber merchant went on. "They have missed you very much. And I want to say I am sorry I was so cross and severe with you," he added. "I was provoked that you should be cheated, but I realize now that it was not your fault. That man made it his business to fool boys with his bad bills. Will you come back, Frank? I promise to treat you better ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope

... cold and hostile existed in the atmosphere and paralyzed her smiles, leaving her words without echo and making ineffectual the splendors of her eyes. All foreheads were bowed under the weight of severe thought: all the men in that instant appeared thirty years older. They simply would not see such a one as she was, however much effort she might make. They had left their admiration and their desires on the other side ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... recourse to a magnifying-glass that stood upon her toilet; and, after a most accurate examination, discovered a fibre of a dusky hue, to which the instrument being applied, Mrs. Pickle pulled it up by the roots, to the no small discomposure of the owner, who, feeling the smart much more severe than he had expected, started up, and swore he would not part with another hair to save them all ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... ocean from other lands, from which restocking might have taken place after the manner of the North Polar regions. Finally, climatic conditions in the Antarctic are, latitude for latitude, much more severe than in ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... that sore one, crabbed and-severe, Lieutenant Lon Lumbago, an arch scrutineer? Call the roll to-day, would he answer—Here! When the Blixum's fellows to quarters mustered How he'd lurch along the lane of gun-crews clustered, Testy as touchwood, to pry and to peer. Jerking his sword underneath ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... complicity in the Pilgrimage of Grace, the avowed object of which was the restoration of Mary to her place as heir-apparent. We may believe, therefore, that while under his surveillance she experienced no severe restraint, nor received that advice with respect to her conduct which prudence would have dictated. Lord Hussey, however, for the present enjoyed the confidence of the king, and was directed to inform his charge, that ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... thinking about Dick Marston," he said. "After the way he was generally regarded at home, it was strange to hear that Canadian's opinions; but I've a notion that this country's a pretty severe touchstone. I mean that the sort of qualities that make one popular in England may not prove of much ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... I can assure you, for the general expects all to be able to do as well as himself. But with a chief who never spares himself all are willing to do their best. Extreme as has been the labor of the troops, severe as have been their hardships, you will never hear a grumble; the men have most implicit confidence in him, and are ready to go anywhere and do ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... too severe a criticism is obvious from the fact that Lichtenstein, in judging savages, was rather apt to err on the side of leniency. The equally generous and amiable missionary Moffat (174-75) censures him, for instance, for his favorable view of the Bechuanas, saying that he was not with them long ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... having a lot of trouble with California fruit trains,—delays, wrecks, cars looted while in the ditch,—and I had made the delay of a fruit train almost a capital offence. The bulletin was, I presume, rather severe, and the enginemen and conductors were ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... given to men in high position to remain cool and calm in great emergencies, and to take comprehensive views of the requirements of so tremendous a contest, as its aspects vary from time to time. The necessary exercise of military authority for the preservation of the Government, however harsh and severe it may be, will be everywhere justified, and even applauded. But there are limits which even military license ought to respect; and when the executive authorities go beyond the bounds of reason and necessity, they ought themselves to be grateful to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mistress Osborne fell ill of the small-pox, and, though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty. To this most severe trial the affection and honour of the lovers of that age was not unfrequently subjected. Our readers probably remember what Mrs. Hutchinson tells of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the aged matron seems to melt into a long-forgotten softness when she relates how her beloved Colonel "married ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... face was beautiful, but had no particle of expression in it, and was dotted here and there with little black patches of plaster. While she was reading, a sober gentleman in black silk-breeches and severe coat came out of the house and stood ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... that a clear line can be drawn between them; criticism does not hope to be mathematically exact. But everybody sees the diversity between the talkative, confidential manner of Thackeray and the severe, discreet, anonymous manner—of whom shall I say?—of Maupassant, for a good example, in many of his stories. It is not only the difference between the personal qualities of the two men, which indeed are also as far apart as the house of Castlewood and the Maison Tellier; ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... his small sister a severe lecture the next morning when, upon his return with his mother, he heard the story, and extracted her promise that hereafter she would not leave the farm without explicit permission. A subdued Sarah made ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence

... you what it is, your Majesty," said ALICE in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding the White Queen), "it'll never do to swagger about all over the place like that! Dignitaries have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various

... cannot tell you," replied his late correspondent. "I have heard nothing from him for several months. When he last wrote, he was suffering under a severe influenza which must have terminated fatally. But why not ask ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... investigate, is the so-called araya trap. It is merely a small piece of ground thickly set with the barbed bones of the sting-ray. These bones are slightly touched with wourahli poison and, concealed as they are under dead leaves, they inflict severe wounds on the bare feet of the caboclos, and death follows ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... always the same, Maggie," said Tom, with the little frown he put on when he was about to be justifiably severe. "You're always setting yourself up above me and every one else, and I've wanted to tell you about it several times. You ought not to have spoken as you did to my uncles and aunts; you should leave it to me to take care of my mother and you, and not put yourself forward. You think you ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... would seem to show that he was not destined to communicate them directly to others—at least, in his own lifetime; and, indeed, no one was quicker at interpreting events than himself. He gave the enterprise a long and severe trial, but the resolute front with which he was met, showed him clearly that it was not to be. It may be that the record of his life, little as he ever imagined it would come before the world, may effect a part of what he himself prepared ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... plainly furnished room, the walls of which made an appropriate frame of uncovered native pine, for he always associated her and her father with the land to which they belonged. There was nothing voluptuous in any line of the girl's face or figure; the effect was chastely severe, and he knew that it conveyed a reliable hint of her character. This was not marked by coldness, but rather by an absence of superficial warmth. The calmness of her eyes spoke of depth and balance. She was steadfast and consistent; a daughter ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... to know better, to magnify the toils and hardships endured by the body, while those labours and anxieties that the mind undergoes are disregarded and forgotten. Every man engaged in an exploring party in the bush, for instance, has his severe trials to go through, but their trials are not to be compared to those of the commander of the party. How often when the rest are sleeping must he be watchful? How frequently, while others are gay, must he feel thoughtful! These remarks may easily be applied ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... the Caravansery Theatre of Varieties announced the first performance of the uniquely interesting Suggestion Dances, interpreted by the Hon. Gorla Mustelford. An impressionist portrait of a rather severe-looking young woman gave the public some idea of what the danseuse might be like in appearance, and the further information was added that her performance was the greatest dramatic event of the season. Yet another piece of information was conveyed to the ...
— When William Came • Saki

... pieces. March 3rd.—This has been a good Sabbath; we had a good prayer meeting at 7 o'clock, a profitable class at 9, in the school the Lord was with us, and the preaching services were good. 4th.—Last night I had a severe attack of my old complaint and suffered greatly for many hours, but I called upon God and he delivered me. 16th.—I am in good health, for which, and the use of my reason, and all the blessings that God bestows upon me, I am thankful. I am unworthy of the least ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock

... tilting the chair and clasping her hands around one knee. "Aside from the sport, we're here because you're a convalescent. You're recovering from a rather severe attack of Dykart Fever. ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... could have hit it better; it proved a biting, drastic purge, the dreadful secret foe was downed, the danger passed. But not for all—Nature, the old nurse, had come too late for two of them. The weakest, by inexorable law, dropped out. Enfeebled by the disease, the remedy was too severe for them. They drank and drank by the stream, and next morning did not move when the others followed the mother. Strange vengeance was theirs now, for a skunk, the same that could have told where Runtie went, ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... unalloyed. It built great cities and created enormous wealth, and gave employment at advanced wages to a vastly increased population. But it brought with it changes in the social condition of the laboring classes which were productive of severe hardship. ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... but Mary Anne Kepp's daughter, with the blood of the Cromie Pagets in her veins, was quite a different person. She returned Mr. Hawkehurst's indifference with corresponding disregard. If his manner was cold as a bleak autumn, hers was icy as a severe winter; only now and then, when she was very tired of her joyless existence, her untutored womanhood asserted itself, and she betrayed the real state of her feelings—betrayed herself as she had done on her last night at Foretdechene, ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... them testify whether they know that the said loss and ruin has been so severe that those citizens who own nothing else are unable to support themselves, or to aid in the service of his Majesty when occasions arise, as they have done until now. They are embarrassed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... Divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and unbounded power over others, marked out by infinite goodness and wisdom as objects of a legal domination, never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... who made use of slang in addressing the bench. The reprehended officer of the law spoke about a prisoner being "turned over," when he should have said "discharged." This gave Mr. DOWLING occasion to pass some severe remarks with regard to the use of slang terms generally, by policemen, and to caution them against addressing persons in any such jargon. The lesson was a timely one, and we hope that it may prove effective, since ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various

... the Restoration Dr. John Fell was appointed Vice-Chancellor, and he not only made the examinations very severe, but he made the examiners keep up to his standard, and was cordially hated by some of the students on that account. An epigram made about him at that time has ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... see him—at least not that night—and I told her so. This gave her great relief, though she said it was cowardly in her to feel so. But in truth she was too ill to see him. Her struggle had been too long and severe, and her nervous system was utterly prostrated. I had Doctor Bates here when Gilbert Hearn came, and the doctor is very discreet. I told him that he must manage so that Emily need not see the one she so feared to meet again, and hinted plainly why, ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... that according to the law, the punishment of a highwayman is not as severe as the punishment of a sneak thief? According to the Mosaic law, if a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he is required to restore five oxen for the one ox, and four sheep for the one sheep; ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... this extemporized chamber never had a chance. The Russians crossed the Pruth before it had done much more than verify its powers, and the thoughts and energies of the Osmanlis were soon occupied with the most severe and disastrous struggle in which the empire had ever engaged. But it is equally certain that it could not have turned to account any chance it might have had. Once more the 'young men in a hurry' had snatched at the end of an evolution hardly begun, without taking into account the immaturity ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... Walpole's Castle of Otranto, are full of the zest and delight of play-acting. Even Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, though it is free from the reproach of forgery, is touched by the same spirit. The severe morality of scholarship had not yet been applied to mediaeval or modern matter. Scholars are the trustees of poets; but where this trust is undertaken by men who are poets themselves, there is usually a good deal of gaiety and exuberance in ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh

... the same direction. Gib of course was absent: by skreigh of day he had been gone to Crossmichael and his fellow-heretics; but the rest of the family would be seen marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-necked, straight-backed six-footers, with severe dark faces, and their plaids about their shoulders; the convoy of children scattering (in a state of high polish) on the wayside, and every now and again collected by the shrill summons of the mother; and the mother herself, by a suggestive circumstance which ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... aesthetic aspects of its life, its gayety and social pleasures, he regarded good-naturedly, with the air of a spectator who tolerated rather than needed or enjoyed them. There was nothing ascetic or severe in him, but I have often thought since that his feeling was probably what he might have afterward described as a consciousness that he must be about his ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... to Europe is going to make you turn up your nose at your native land the best thing you can do is to face round and go straight back home," was Hannah's severe reply. ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett

... severe in his interpretation of the regulations, I understand," said his father. "He is turning men down right and left. He knows, of course, that there are plenty to choose from. But there is no fear ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... took the risk of grounding on the shoal. His own ship and a few others did ground for a time, but they served as a guide to the rest. In the ensuing action Blake succeeded in putting the Dutch between two fires and inflicting a severe defeat. Only darkness saved the Dutch from ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... are remarkably severe: the most stringent are against ingratitude and against deserters; some too are abominable, inasmuch as for the crime of one man they condemn ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... He's up to his eyes in work. As you probably have heard, he met with a severe accident last summer, and lost the use of his right arm for many months. I believe they thought at one time he had lost it forever. But it's all right now, and he has several commissions for portraits. Alice says he's doing ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... which I have quoted before, that they had elected him by their unanimous voices. All this, he says, had been very grateful to him, but he had quite understood that it had been done that he might labor on their behalf. That such labor was severe, he declares. The Consulship itself must be defended. His period of Consulship to any Consul must be a year of grave responsibility, but more so to him than to any other. To him, should he be in doubt, the great nobles would give no kind advice. ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... the dining-room window, and Mrs Mountstuart preferred the terminating of a dialogue that did not promise to leave her features the austerely iron cast with which she had commenced it. She was under the spell of gratitude for his behaviour yesterday evening at her dinner-table; she could not be very severe. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... her anxiety was awakened by the indisposition of her father, who was attacked with a fever; which, though not thought to be of a dangerous kind, gave a severe shock to his constitution. Madame St. Aubert and Emily attended him with unremitting care; but his recovery was very slow, and, as he advanced towards health, Madame ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... their bearing. While, however, I watched them with an eager eye, I heard the tramp of horsemen coming along the paved causeway. From the moment my ear caught the sound to that of their arrival at the gate of the orchard, but few minutes elapsed; their pace was indeed a severe one, and as they galloped through the narrow path that led to the farm-house, they never drew rein till they reached the porch. The party consisted of about a dozen persons whose plumed hats bespoke them staff officers; but their uniforms were concealed beneath their great-coats. As they ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... facade and the inharmonious interior matter but little. Toward the foe, whose sail might have arisen on the horizon at any moment, the protecting church presented the heavy rounded walls and safely narrowed windows of its three apses, and behind them the military omen of the severe, rectangular tower. High in every one of its four sides, seaward and landward, was a window, from which many a watcher must have looked and strained anxious eyes. This is the significance of the little sea-side Cathedral, this the story its tower ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... dangers; he is obliged to brave repulses and disdain—often the deepest misery. And if he succumbs to all these frightful temptations to criminality, and commits a second crime, you show yourself ten times more severe toward him than for his first fault. That is unjust; for it is almost always the necessity you impose on him which conducts him to a second crime. Yes; for it is shown that, instead of correcting him, your penitentiary system depraves. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... incidents at the building of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, as they actually were, and looked, and occurred. Although there was much, very much, of risk, exposure, danger, and trial connected with the erection of that building, there was, in the good providence of God, very little of severe accident or death. Yet that little must be told,—at least touched upon,—else will our picture remain incomplete as ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... saying that there are no trees on the island, though there are as bad as none now. They formerly had a great number of magnificent orange-trees, that were all destroyed by an unusually severe winter; there are a few left, however, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... house and took his way to the north end of the island. He had not been above learning more than one thing from the squirrels, and he had recalled a grove of great hickory trees growing almost to the water's edge. Now the ground was thickly covered with the nuts which had fallen when the severe frosts and the snow and ice came. There were several varieties, including large ones two inches long, and the fine little ones known to boys throughout the Mississippi Valley as the scaly bark. Paul procured two stones, and, cracking several of them, found them delicious to the taste. ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... as by a knife plunged into the heart through the shoulder blades or between the two shoulders. An intense fire seemed to burn the entrails; blood flowed freely from the throat; a violent perspiration ensued, followed by severe chills; tumors gathered upon the neck, the hip, under the arms or behind the shoulder blades. The end was invariably the same—death, inevitable, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott



Words linked to "Severe" :   strict, plain, knockout, strong, intense, critical, bad, nonindulgent, severity



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org