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To reproach with severe or insulting words; to revile; to upbraid; to jeer at; to flout. When I had at my pleasure taunted her. Shak.

Sung; close; firm; secure. Taut hand (Naut.), a sailor's term for an officer who is severe in discipline.

Excessive; extreme; severe. [Colloq.] The terrible coldness of the season. Clarendon.

A morbid condition resembling tetanus, but distinguished from it by being less severe and having intermittent spasms.

h noise and terror; to utter vehemently; to publish, as a threat or denunciation. Oracles severe Were daily thundered in our general's ear. Dryden. An archdeacon, as being a prelate, may thunder out an ecclesiastical censure. Ayliffe.

Vehement threatening or censure; especially, ecclesiastical denunciation; fulmination. He severely threatens such with the thunderbolt of excommunication. Hakewill.

To beat thoroughly or severely. [Obs.] Layamon.

st distinguished by a rapid whirling and slow progressive motion, usually accompaned with severe thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain, and commonly of short duration and small breadth; a small cyclone.

Especially, severe pain inflicted judicially, either as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of extorting a confession from an accused person, as by water or fire, by the boot or thumbkin, or by the rack or wheel.

Sour of aspect; of a severe countenance; stern; grim. [Obs.] That torvous, sour look produced by anger. Derham.

Severe; violent; as, a tough storm. [Colloq.] " A tough debate. " Fuller. To make it tough, to make it a matter of difficulty; to make it a hard matter. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Labor with pain; severe toil or exertion. As everything of price, so this doth require travail. Hooker.

Fig.: Keen; biting; severe; as, trenchant wit.

In a trenchant, or sharp, manner; sharply; severely.

That which occasions distress, trouble, or vexation; severe affliction. When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. Matt. xiii. 21. In the world ye shall have tribulation. John. xvi. 33.

To punish or beat severely; to whip smartly; to flog; to castigate. [Colloq.]

To subject to severe trial; to put to the test; to cause suffering or trouble to. Thus far to try thee, Adam, I was pleased. Milton. Thomas Paine (1776)

Adapted to try, or put to severe trial; severe; afflictive; as, a trying occasion or position.

A maker of tumults. [Obs.] He severely punished the tumulters. Milton.

Of or pertaining to a tyrant; suiting a tyrant; unjustly severe in government; absolute; imperious; despotic; cruel; arbitrary; as, a tyrannical prince; a tyrannical master; tyrannical government. "A power tyrannical." Shak. Our sects a more tyrannic power assume. Roscommon. The oppressor ruled tyrannic where he durst.…