asperity

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   something hard to endure

   The asperity of northern winters.

2. 2
   noun

   The quality of being difficult or unpleasant to experience; (countable) a thing that is harsh and difficult to endure; a difficulty, a hardship.

   The asperity of Maine’s winter.

From Middle English asprete, asperite, from Old French aspreté (modern French âpreté), from Latin asperitātem, the accusative singular of asperitās (“roughness, unevenness; fierceness, severity; harshness, sharpness; acidity, tartness”), from asper (“coarse, rough, uneven; bitter, fierce harsh; rude, unrefined; etc.”) (probably from Proto-Indo-European *h₂esp- (“to cut”)) + -itās (a variant of -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being)). The spelling of the English word is influenced directly by Latin asperitātem. Doublet of asperitas.

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