Search the Dictionary

Difficult to bear or endure; not easy to put up with or consent to; hence, severe; rigorous; oppressive; distressing; unjust; grasping; as, a hard lot; hard times; hard fare; a hard winter; hard conditions or terms. I never could drive a hard bargain. Burke.

cold fit which precedes a fever; in old medical writings, a chill of less severity than a rigor, and more marked than an algor.

Excessive criticism, or unjust severity or rigor of criticism; zoilism.

Not admitting excuse, evasion, or plea; rigorous. [R.] T. Adams.

ity or harshness (commonly in respect to the elements or weather); roughness; storminess; rigor; severe cold, wind, rain, or snow. The inclemencies of morning air. Pope. The rude inclemency of wintry skies. Cowper.

re or harsh (generally restricted to the elements or weather); rough; boisterous; stormy; rigorously cold, etc.; as, inclement weather. Cowper. The guard the wretched from the inclement sky. Pope. Teach us further by what means to shun The inclement seasons, rain, ice, hail, and snow! Milton.

s to the end or object; impropriety; as, the inexpedience of some measures. It is not the rigor but the inexpediency of laws and acts of authority which makes them tyrannical. Paley.

; also, of or pertaining to, or characteristic of, the Inquisition. All the inquisitional rigor . . . executed upon books. Milton.

Pertaining to inquisition; making rigorous and unfriendly inquiry; searching; as, inquisitorial power. "Illiberal and inquisitorial abuse." F. Blackburne. He conferred on it a kind of inquisitorial and censorious power even over the laity, and directed it to inquire into all matters of conscience. Hume.…

Rigorous; severe; exacting; as, an ironclad oath or pledge. [Colloq.]

was driven by the necessities of the times, more than led by his own disposition, to any rigor of actions. Eikon Basilike. Silly women, laden with sins,led away by divers lusts. 2 Tim. iii. 6 (Rev. Ver.).

Mild; clement; merciful; not rigorous or severe; as, a lenient disposition; a lenient judge or sentence.

tion; gentleness of treatment; softness; tenderness; clemency; -- opposed to severity and rigor. His exceeding lenity disposes us to be somewhat too severe. Macaulay.

Not strict or rigorous; not confined or restricted to the literal sense; free; as, a liberal translation of a classic, or a liberal construction of law or of language.

Following the letter or exact words; not free. A middle course between the rigor of literal translations and the liberty of paraphrasts. Hooker.

To make less severe, intense, harsh, rigorous, painful, etc.; to soften; to meliorate; to alleviate; to diminish; to lessen; as, to mitigate heat or cold; to mitigate grief.

ing painful, harsh, severe, afflictive, or calamitous; as, the mitigation of pain, grief, rigor, severity, punishment, or penalty.

Kept within due bounds; observing reasonable limits; not excessive, extreme, violent, or rigorous; limited; restrained; as:

y present in dead muscle, being formed in the process of coagulation which takes place in rigor mortis; the clot formed in the coagulation of muscle plasma. See Muscle plasma, under Plasma.

A theory or practice which is a further development, on more rigorously scientific lines, of the theory and practice of Impressionism, originated by George Seurat (1859-91), and carried on by Paul Signac (1863- -) and others. Its method is marked by the laying of pure primary colors in minute dots upon a white ground,…