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Literary notes about ASPERITY (AI summary)

In literature, asperity is frequently employed to convey a sharp, biting quality in both tone and description. Writers use it to characterize speech that is abrupt, irritable, or laden with underlying hostility, as when a character retorts with a brisk, unyielding edge [1, 2, 3]. It also appears in depictions of physical texture, suggesting roughness or unevenness, as when every asperity of the soil is illuminated by light [4]. Through such varied applications—from the sharpness of a diplomat's rebuke [5, 6] to the physical jaggedness of a landscape—the term enriches narrative textures by evoking a sense of uncompromising severity and emotional intensity [7, 8, 9].
  1. "That question would provide an interesting subject for debate at the Carlton, my dear," he replied with equal asperity.
    — from The Wings of the Morning by Louis Tracy
  2. He broke out with great asperity, and told them dictatorially, they should not alter an iota of the letter.
    — from Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, Volume 1 (of 4) by Horace Walpole
  3. ‘What do you mean by that, Sir?’ said Mr. Tuckle, with great asperity.
    — from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  4. Each hillock, every rock, every stone, every asperity of the soil had its share of the luminous effulgence, and its shadow fell heavily on the soil.
    — from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
  5. “Mr. Ford has already explained the situation,” he said with asperity.
    — from Martin Eden by Jack London
  6. May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?" asked Holmes with some asperity.
    — from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
  7. p. 134) censures, with becoming asperity, the style and sentiments of this intolerant law.
    — from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  8. ‘Nobody but you,’ retorted Mrs. Pott, with asperity.
    — from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  9. "But, Bertie, dash it——" "Jeeves," I said with a certain asperity, "is no longer on the case.
    — from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

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