English

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Etymology

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From Middle English harsknes; equivalent to harsh +‎ -ness.

Noun

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harshness (countable and uncountable, plural harshnesses)

  1. The quality of being harsh.
    • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles[1], part 6:
      And yet these harshnesses are tenderness itself when compared with the universal harshness out of which they grow; the harshness of the position towards the temperament, of the means towards the aims, of to-day towards yesterday, of hereafter towards to-day.
    • 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider []”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, [], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II (Burglary), page 378, column 1:
      She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.

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