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Pricking; piercing; sharp; pungent. "His poignant spear." Spenser. "Poynaunt sauce." Chaucer.

In a poignant manner.

iolable faith. -- Attic purity, special purity of language. -- Attic salt, Attic wit, a poignant, delicate wit, peculiar to the Athenians. -- Attic story. See Attic, n. -- Attic style, a style pure and elegant.

Causing, or fitted to cause, pain or distress to the mind; calamitous; poignant. It is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God. Jer. ii. 19.

A picking of heart; poignant grief proceeding from a sense of guilt or consciousness of causing pain; the sting of conscience. He acknowledged his disloyalty to the king, with expressions of great compunction. Clarendon.

To make more poignant or affecting; to increase in degree; as, to deepen grief or sorrow.

To feel or to express deep and poignant grief for; to bewail; to lament; to mourn; to sorrow over. To find her, or forever to deplore Her loss. Milton. As some sad turtle his lost love deplores. Pope.

The quality or state of being poignant; as, the poignancy of satire; the poignancy of grief. Swift.

Sharply painful; penetrating; poignant; severe; caustic; stinging. With pungent pains on every side. Swift. His pungent pen played its part in rousing the nation. J. R. Green.

pecially, a dressing for meat or fish or for puddings; as, mint sauce; sweet sauce, etc. "Poignant sauce." Chaucer. High sauces and rich spices fetched from the Indies. Sir S. Baker.

Keen; severe; poignant; as, smart pain.