ACUTE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Acute

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/əkjˈut/ Listen

adjective

Acute adj.

Sharp at the end; ending in a sharp point; pointed; opposed to blunt or obtuse; as, an acute angle; an acute leaf.

Having nice discernment; perceiving or using minute distinctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; opposed to dull or stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.

Having nice or quick sensibility; susceptible to slight impressions; acting keenly on the senses; sharp; keen; intense; as, a man of acute eyesight, hearing, or feeling; acute pain or pleasure.

High, or shrill, in respect to some other sound; opposed to grave or low; as, an acute tone or accent.

(Med.) 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.

Synonyms: Subtile; ingenious; sharp; keen; penetrating; sagacious; sharp-witted; shrewd; discerning; discriminating. See Subtile.

verb

Acute v. t. To give an acute sound to; as, he acutes his rising inflection too much. (R.)

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Etymology of 'Acute'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Acute" Quotes from Famous Books

... So acute was the suffering of the samurai that a rice-exchange was established at Dojima, in Osaka, for the purpose of imparting some measure of stability to the price of the cereal. Just at this time (1732), the central and western provinces were visited by a famine ...

— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... said Klesmer, seating himself, at Mrs. Meyrick's invitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. The acute little mother would not have acknowledged the weakness, but she really said to herself, "He will like her singing better if ...

— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... in a roundabout way, almost in a "whisper, but kept getting a little muddled. Nikolay looked anything but cordial, not at all as a relation should. He was pale and sat looking down and continually moving his eyebrows as though trying to control acute pain. ...

— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... technically known as the abdomen, but in the middle division which naturalists call the thorax, where it forms a transparent bladder-like swelling, and makes the creature look as though it were suffering with an acute attack of dropsy. In any case, the life of a honey-bearer must be singularly uneventful, not to say dull and monotonous; but no doubt any small inconvenience in this respect must be more than compensated for by the glorious consciousness that one is sacrificing one's own personal comfort ...

— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... delightful young lady whose charms, however, do not command the unanimous approval of the parishioners. The possession of high musical attainments makes her temperament all the more interesting, and accounts for the presence in so remote a district of her German friend whose acute sense of the ridiculous leads to such untoward results. It is hard to say whether the author's talents are best evinced by her true pathos or by the delicate touches of humour which pervade the book. Another commendable feature of the ...

— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

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