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; consonance of a statement, proposition, or other thing, with fact; truth; reality. "The verity of certain words." Shak. It is a proposition of eternal verity, that none can govern while he is despised. South.

Gravity or austerity; extreme strictness; rigor; harshness; as, the severity of a reprimand or a reproof; severity of discipline or government; severity of penalties. "Strict age, and sour severity." Milton.

Harshness, bitterness, or severity; as, acerbity of temper, of language, of pain. Barrow.

Sharpness or severity, as of language or temper; irritating bitterness of disposition or manners. John the Baptist set himself with much acrimony and indignation to baffle this senseless arrogant conceit of theirs. South.

Attended with symptoms of some degree of severity, and coming speedily to a crisis; -- opposed to chronic; as, an acute disease. Acute angle (Geom.), an angle less than a right angle.

ravating, or making worse; -- used of evils, natural or moral; the act of increasing in severity or heinousness; something additional to a crime or wrong and enhancing its guilt or injurious consequences.

To alleviate; to abate; to mitigate; as, to allay the severity of affliction or the bitterness of adversity. It would allay the burning quality of that fell poison. Shak.

The act of alleviating; a lightening of weight or severity; mitigation; relief.

re; -- with on or upon. I should not animadvert on him . . . if he had not used extreme severity in his judgment of the incomparable Shakespeare. Dryden.

Moral roughness; roughness of manner; severity; crabbedness; harshness; -- opposed to mildness. "Asperity of character." Landor. It is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received. Johnson.

Severity; strictness; austerity. Shak.

Severity of manners or life; extreme rigor or strictness; harsh discipline. The austerity of John the Baptist. Milton.

Characterized by sharpness, severity, or cruelty; harsh; stern; virulent; as, bitter reproach. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Col. iii. 19.

harp, or acrid, in either a literal or figurative sense; implacableness; resentfulness; severity; keenness of reproach or sarcasm; deep distress, grief, or vexation of mind. The lip that curls with bitterness. Percival. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Job vii. 11.

Easter Monday, so called from the severity of that day in 1360, which was so unusual that many of Edward III.'s soldiers, then before Paris, died from the cold. Stow. Then it was not for nothing that may nose fell a bleeding on Black Monday last. Shak.

Sternness; severity. [Obs.] A Sara for goodness, a great Bellona for budgeness. Stanyhurst.

Severity of language; sarcasm; as, the causticity of a reply or remark.

Severity of climate; extreme weather, whether hot or cold. [Obs.] Those countries . . . under the tropic, were of a distemper uninhabitable. Sir W. Raleigh.

Rigorous; stringent; harsh. [Obs.] Punishing with the rod of district severity. Foxe.

h is exacted; a severe tribute; a fee, reward, or contribution, demanded or levied with severity or injustice. Daniel.