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Acuteness   Listen
noun
Acuteness  n.  
1.
The quality of being acute or pointed; sharpness; as, the acuteness of an angle.
2.
The faculty of nice discernment or perception; acumen; keenness; sharpness; sensitiveness; applied to the senses, or the understanding. By acuteness of feeling, we perceive small objects or slight impressions: by acuteness of intellect, we discern fine distinctions. "Perhaps, also, he felt his professional acuteness interested in bringing it to a successful close."
3.
Shrillness; high pitch; said of sounds.
4.
(Med.) Violence of a disease, which brings it speedily to a crisis.
Synonyms: Penetration; sagacity; keenness; ingenuity; shrewdness; subtlety; sharp-wittedness.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Acuteness" Quotes from Famous Books



... Henry, is a wise counselor," remarked Ichi, proving the acuteness of his hearing. "You are to be congratulated, Mr. Blake. One does not usually recover with such admirable quickness from the effects of the cervical plexus hold my man, Moto, practised upon you. And you, my ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... them to me," commanded Ingolby. Again Ingolby was conscious of hesitation on Jim's part. Already the acuteness of the blind was possessing him, sharpening the senses left unimpaired. Although Jim moved, presumably, towards the place where the telegrams lay, Ingolby realized that his own authority was being crossed by that of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... noble figures, too,—affectionate, frank, brave, high-spirited, 'of an open and free nature' like Shakespeare's best men. And almost all of them, again, are amusing and charming as well as pathetic; comical in their mingled acuteness and naivete, charming in their confidence in themselves and the world, and in the seriousness with which they receive the jocosity of their elders, who commonly address them as strong men, great warriors, or ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... interviews with the Monsignor and Anne did justice to her acuteness. The priest alone knew the true personality of Arthur. From Anne all but the fact of his disappearance had been kept, probably to guard against just such attempts as Curran's. The detective reminded her that her theory stood only because of her method of selection ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... improbable to the unthinking reader that a timid and alarmed maiden should be able to read the character of a foe by his features under such circumstances. But those very circumstances tended to produce such acuteness. And this is not only the case with human beings, but even with dumb brutes—for, at the moment they are about to be assailed, they invariably and instinctively look the assailant in the eye, mercy being the only remaining hope.) Again the young warrior turned to behold his captive's face, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... and snows upwards." King David, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Lactantius, and a host of other theological authorities were all put in evidence against the Genoese mariner: he was confronted by the "conservatism of lawyers united to the bigotry of priests." Las Casas displays his usual acuteness when he says that the great difficulty of Columbus was, not that of teaching, but that of unteaching: not of promulgating his own theory, but of eradicating the erroneous convictions of the judges before whom he had to plead his cause. In fine, the junta decided that the project was ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... counsel and suitors, that every body's convenience was consulted, but his own,—with a dignity, sustained without effort, and, apparently, without care to sustain it, to which all men were solicitous to pay due respect,—with such profound sagacity, such quick penetration, such acuteness, clearness, strength, and comprehension of mind, that in his hand, the most complicated causes were plain, the weightiest and most difficult, easy and light,—with such striking impartiality and justice, and a judgment so sure, as to inspire ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... the acuteness of the vowel denotes celerity. In sparkle, sp denotes dissipation, ar an acute crackling, k a sudden interruption, l a frequent iteration; and in like manner in sprinkle, unless in may imply the subtilty of the dissipated guttules. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... with swift acuteness, "maybe I'm not as bad a fellow as you think. Why can't you trust me with this story—of what brought you to Hunston, and what made you run away this morning and hide? If it's really something that newspapers haven't got anything to do with, I'll ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... And certainly a nation that never kept such a treaty would find itself in a position where it was impossible to make any treaties at all. Still, if upon a vague calculation of men's memories, the acuteness of the circumstance, the advantage ultimately to follow, and so on, it be to the advantage of Prussia to break such solemn treaty, then such a ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... England is producing in our own day, Diderot's once famous Letter on the Blind seems both crude and loose in its thinking. Yet considering the state of philosophy in France at the time of its appearance, we are struck by the acuteness, the good sense, and the originality of many of its positions. It was the first effective introduction into France of these great and fundamental principles; that all knowledge is relative to our intelligence, that thought is not the measure of existence, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... particularly qualified to judge: "Let me add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of Martinus Scriblerus ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share."—See Preliminary Dissertation ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Vauvenargues pursued his painful life in the Street of the Peacock. He knew his feebleness, but he refused to let it depress him; "labour to get gloire is not lost," he said, "if it tends to make us worthy of it." In his curious mixture of simplicity and acuteness, in his gravity and ardour, he was morally just like the best types which this great war has produced, he is like Paul Lintier in France, like Julian Grenfell among ourselves, meeting the worst blows of fate with serenity ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... Ingleby might have gone even farther, and demanded for it a spark of that creative power which is genius. But it must not be inferred that all the difficult passages in Shakespeare can be thus explained away. Despite all learning, or acuteness, or genius, there remains a considerable number that have never yet been solved, and never will be, in general acceptation, till the crack of doom. These, however, bear so small a proportion to the vast mass of perplexing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... bewildered. The colour seemed to me extraordinarily crude. It passed through my mind that the whole thing was a stupendous, incomprehensible farce. Now that I look back I am more than ever impressed by Stroeve's acuteness. He saw from the first that here was a revolution in art, and he recognised in its beginnings the genius which now ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... them, so that merely scientific draughtsmen caricature a third part of Nature, and miss two-thirds. The best scholar is he whose eye is so keen as to see at once how the thing looks, and who need not, therefore, trouble himself with any reasons why it looks so: but few people have this acuteness of perception; and to those who are destitute of it, a little pointing out of rule and reason will be a help, especially when a master is not near them. I never allow my own pupils to ask the reason of anything, because, as I watch their work, I can always show them how the thing ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... the herald's "O yes! O yes!" outside in the street proclaiming the Resolution of the Council. Young though he was, my Grandson—who was unusually intelligent for his age, and bred up in perfect reverence for the authority of the Circles—took in the situation with an acuteness for which I was quite unprepared. He remained silent till the last words of the Proclamation had died away, and then, bursting into tears, "Dear Grandpapa," he said, "that was only my fun, and of course I meant nothing at all by it; and we ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... on the highest grounds, and as she ate she sent her eyes round the restaurant, knowing quite well the line of the thought she expected it to arouse in her. She was not, in fact, seeing things with any acuteness. There was a woman at a table close by wearing a dress of a very beautiful blue, the colour of the lower flowers of the darkest delphiniums, but the sight of it gave her none of the pleasant physical sensations, the pricking of the skin, the desire to ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... state of things as irremediable, and without hope; on the contrary, we doubt not but the Better Spirit will in time resume its pre-eminence, and colonists will be respected for their elevated sentiments and high sense of honour, rather than for their acuteness in driving a bargain. This evil, which is the natural consequence of their present condition as isolated atoms, unconnected together by those bonds of mutual respect which confine men in older countries, will cease as society becomes re-organized, and men feel themselves ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... of his great work, a disquisition on the probable effects that would have followed, if Alexander the Great had invaded Italy. Posterity has generally regarded that disquisition as proving Livy's patriotism more strongly than his impartiality or acuteness. Yet, right or wrong, the speculations of the Roman writer were directed to the consideration of a very remote possibility. To whatever age Alexander's life might have been prolonged, the East would have furnished ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... conversation, he mentioned the fact that he had once passed a year in New York, of which place he conversed with interest and vivacity. B—— was anxious to know who this gentleman might be. I could only say that he was a man of great acuteness and knowledge, whom I had often met in society, but, as to his name, I did not remember ever to have heard it. He had always conducted himself in the simple manner that he witnessed, and it was my impression that he was the private secretary ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... clever roguery,' Mr. Hayes interposed. 'An ordinary rascal would have forged a later will in Lord Southminster's favour and run the risk of detection; Higginson had the acuteness to forge a will exactly like the real one, and to let your husband bear the burden of the forgery. It was as sagacious ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... man. Why, Denbow has made as much as two hundred in a year out of printing for amateurs alone. It's his own fault that he didn't keep it up. I swear, Rolfe, that with capital and hard work and acuteness, that place can be made the establishment of the kind south of the Thames. Why, there's no reason why one shouldn't net a thousand a year in ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... with the race, has remarked their intense keenness of vision. Their eyes, for acuteness, and capability of discerning distant objects, resemble those of the eagle or the lynx; and their cat-like tread among the grass and leaves, seems so light as scarcely to shake off the dew drops. Thus they advance on their expedition rapidly and ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... vultures of the sea are still cleverer in other ways. Their forefathers have lived on the sea for thousands of years, and their senses have been developed to the greatest acuteness and perfection. They know the regular winds, and can perceive from the colour of the water if a cold or warm sea current sweeps along below them. If now our friend the albatross, travelling westwards over the islands of Polynesia, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... last appeal. To be sure, he was a keener judge of the sights and scents of the mountain desert than any of the half-bred mares but though he lived to fifty years he would never approach the stored wisdom, the uncanny acuteness of eye, ear, and nostril of the wild grey. Her view-point seemed, at times, that of the high-sailing buzzards, for she guessed, miles and miles away, what water-holes were dry and what "tanks" brimmed with water; what trails were broken by ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, over-night) about the pony. It really was as much as he could ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges of the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we have just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts were erected at the different points that commanded the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... most elaborate and energetic attempt to prove Shakspere classically learned is that made in the Critital Observations on Shakspere (1746) of the Rev. John Upton, a man of great erudition and much random acuteness (shown particularly in bold attempts to excise interpolations from the Gospels), but as devoid of the higher critical wisdom as was Bentley, whom he congenially criticised. To a reader of to-day, his arguments from Shakspere's diction and syntax ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... them justice. One is a wit, and one a scholar[20]. They have both shown acuteness sufficient in the discovery of faults, and have both advanced some probable interpretations of obscure passages; but when they aspire to conjecture and emendation, it appears how falsely we all estimate our own abilities, and the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... moralist; and he receives the fundamental truths of the gospel with an avidity, and applies them—at least to the lives and characters of his neighbors—with a keenness, which show him to be not far behind the rest of mankind in sensibility and acuteness. Without referring to the testimony of the elder missionaries, which is abundant, I remember a most touching account, by Rev. George Duffield, jr., of piety in an Indian wigwam, which I would gladly transfer to ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... forcibly, he added a preface, a sort of dramatic creed, explaining just what he had tried to do, and why. This preface, which has become hardly less famous than the play itself, is here, as I believe, for the first time rendered into English. The acuteness and exhaustiveness of its analysis serves not only to make it a psychological document of rare value, but also to save me much of the comment which without it ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... regiment, with a short and suitable address. I faintly heard this laconic speech, but not distinctly enough to offer any criticism upon the eloquence of the speaker. This exhibition had its intended effect, and displayed the genius of this extraordinary man, who, with unerring acuteness, knows so well to give to every public occurrence that dramatic hue and interest which are so gratifying to the minds of the people over whom he presides. After this ceremony, the several regiments, preceded by their bands of music, marched before him in open order, and dropped their colours ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... probably have been more exact, the derivations more copious, and a greater number of significant words now omitted [7], have been collected from our earliest writers; but the citations would often have been made with less judgment, and the definitions laid down with less acuteness ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... steps, carelessly testing them. For the rest, he was going back here; something of the cold, loose freshness got into his brain, he believed. In the two years of absence his power of concentration had been stronger, his perceptions more free from prejudice, gaining every day delicate point, acuteness of analysis. He drew a long breath of the icy air, coarse with the wild perfume of the prairie. No, his temperament needed a subtiler atmosphere than this, rarer essence than mere brutal freedom. The East, the Old World, was his proper sphere for self-development. He would go as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... keener and more anxious watchfulness than those sad, deep-set, hazel ones; and as she was drawn along the train of its inevitable logic, a close observer might have seen how the shadows deepened over them. For, while others listened for the clearness of the thought, for the acuteness of the argument, she listened as a soul wide, fine-strung, acute, repressed, whose every fibre is a nerve, listens to the problem of its own destiny,—listened as the mother of a family listens, to know ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... suggested by her new mamma, (for she never called her by any other name,) she engaged with docility and eagerness; and her behaviour and her progress exceeded the most sanguine hopes that I had formed as to the softness of her temper and the acuteness of her genius. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... near Hereford was of kin to her of St. Anne's, and, close as a convent is, yet the gossiping of the servants who go to market was certain to let out an affair so important as the arrival of a young lady to reside under the charge of the superior. Cuthbert was not mistaken as to the acuteness of his enemy. The relationship between the two lady superiors was no secret, and after having searched all the farmhouses and granges near the forest, and being convinced that the lady abbess would have sent her charge rather to a religious house than to that of a franklin, Sir Rudolph ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... consider the life of a hunter, pitting his skill and strength against the marvellous instincts and quick perceptions of the brute, training his senses to preternatural acuteness, but blunting his more tender feelings, his sole aim to shed blood and take life, dependent on luck for his food, exposed to deprivations, storms, and long wanderings, his chief diet flesh, we may more readily comprehend that conspicuous disregard of ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... identifies these speculations with the recent writers who have adopted them, he is not to be understood as allowing that these writers have originated any novel speculations, or excelled the sceptics of former times in acuteness, or plausibility, or success in urging their cause. He adopts the method of the Platonic dialogue, and exhibits a dialectic skill in confounding by objections when objections can be made to do service as arguments. ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... laminitis takes varies greatly in different cases, being influenced more or less by the exciting cause, the animal's previous condition, the acuteness of the attack, and the subsequent treatment. The first symptoms rarely exhibit themselves while the animal is at his work, although we occasionally see the gait impaired by stumbling, the body covered ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... felt convinced; therefore, as soon as the necessary ceremonies had been gone through in receiving the officers of the newly-arrived troops, Reginald ordered that Khan Cochut and the slave should be brought before him. The only person present besides Burnett was Buxsoo, on whose judgment and acuteness Reginald knew that he could rely to elicit the truth from the slave, if not from Cochut, who was not at all likely to confess it unless from dire necessity. Both were subjected to a close cross-examination; ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... you very much for your kind note, which warmed my heart, and for the sketch you have cut out of Punch. It is indeed a fine one, and my father, to whom I showed it yesterday when your letter reached me, was pleased with its acuteness, as well as with the kind messages you sent him and which he requites. He has left last night for good, and I follow to-night to Friedrichsruh. It was a rather melancholy historical event, when my father stepped out of the house in which he has lived ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... by study of his methods and his works, saw his capacity for leadership. Hence the popular demand for him to stand as candidate for mayor of Harrisville. His practical intelligence, and his acuteness in observation of character, had served him well in organizing, developing, and controlling the greatest model steel-plant of his generation, which for quality, quantity, and minimum cost of products had attracted the attention ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... ability, a scholar and a reasoner.' 'His scholarship,' says this same reviewer again, 'is apparent throughout.' 'Along with a wide and minute scholarship,' he writes in yet another place, 'the unknown writer shows great acuteness.' Again a third reviewer, of whose general tone, as well as of his criticisms on the first part of the work, I should wish to speak with the highest respect, praises the writer's 'searching and scholarly criticism.' Lastly a fourth reviewer attributes to the author 'careful ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... portions of George Fox's Journal, where a strong spirit clothes its utterance in simple, downright Saxon words; the quiet and beautiful enthusiasm of Pennington; the torrent energy of Edward Burrough; the serene wisdom of Penn; the logical acuteness of Barclay; the honest truthfulness of Sewell; the wit and humor of John Roberts, (for even Quakerism had its apostolic jokers and drab-coated Robert Halls;) and last, not least, the simple beauty of Woolman's Journal, the modest record of a life ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... works I am not able to deduce; their number and their variety show the intenseness of his industry and the extent of his capacity. He was one of the first authors that taught the Dissenters to court attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and blunted by coarseness and inelegance of style. He showed them that zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction. He continued to the end of his life a teacher of a congregation, and no reader of ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in still earlier times, in the service of which probably more labour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent than on any actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to its "super-terrestrial" pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with everlasting claims, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... there should be a ground equally familiar to the writer and to his readers. If there be no such common ground, they will certainly not come into full accord. There have been recusants who, by a certain acuteness of their own, have partly done so,—wilful recusants; but they have been recusants, not to the extent of discarding grammar,—which no writer could do and not be altogether in the dark,—but so far as to have created for themselves a phraseology which has been picturesque ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... penniless gambler, that, had he money to stake, he should infallibly make a fortune; predicting what colour would come out, and indulging, when he proved a true prophet, in a little subdued blasphemy because he was unable to profit by his acuteness. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... cattle in the district, without trouble or dispute. His store stood always open, it was standing so seven miles away at the moment of the case; and when his cattle strayed, they were duly impounded and restored to him on payment of one shilling. But recently a gentleman of great acuteness and a thousand imperfect talents had married into the family of a neighbouring proprietor; consecutively on which event the store-keeper's cattle began to be detained and starved, the fine rose to half a dollar, and lastly a cow had disappeared. The Portuguese may have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... another interview with Una, and, for that purpose, offered, as before, to ascertain, in the course of that evening, at what time and place she would see him. This suggestion, in itself so natural, was adopted, and as Connor felt, with a peculiar acuteness, the pain of the situation in which he was! placed, he manifested little tendency to conversation, and the evening consequently passed ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... a new development was made in the art of painting. Through his labors, about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus, without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that, as all men were connected by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew his line of imitation and ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... if any caste of character is more dangerous than another, it is that which blends penetration and simplicity; the one interests while the other charms. Not knowing these truths, Mr. Ashburner had mentally resolved to enter upon this field of philosophical research. The simplicity, the humor, the acuteness of observation, the intelligence, and perhaps the pretty face of his companion, tended to interest him in an unusual manner. And she, too, seemed attracted by the young Englishman, whose education and intelligence rendered him an agreeable companion to any educated ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... another joey," replied Buster, with the premature acuteness of youth foraging for itself ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... to hear what thoughtful men had to say with regard to his race, Ensal leaned back in his chair, determined to give earnest attention to this observer of American life, whose very hostility assured the acuteness of ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... they are likely to choose any one else with your ideas?" she interposed with unexpected acuteness; and after a short silence he answered: "Not immediately, perhaps; but in time—in time there ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... seen that William Hogan, with all his acuteness, had a very narrow escape from falling into the hands of the law and suffering its penalties. Still, it has been my experience, that men like him, who have stood their ground, following their usual legitimate occupations, ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... a woman, cut off by the peculiarities of her situation from the sympathies of nature and the charm of equal affections, Elizabeth, at times suffered under these privations, which even gave to her sensibility additional force and acuteness, the strength of her reason still triumphed over her passions, and the struggle which her victories cost her served but to display the firmness of her resolution and the loftiness of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... observation—observation of the men and things that lay immediately around them. They may have seen but little; but what they did see, they grasped with surprising force and clearness. They may not have gone far beneath the surface; but, so far as they went, their work was a model of acuteness and precision. This was the secret of their power. To this may be traced their victory in the various ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... the alert, and looked out for intrigues with the acuteness of a policeman, followed women about, had all the impudence and all the cleverness of the fast man who has made love for forty years, without ever meaning anything serious, who knows all its lies, tricks and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... by him who is willing to hear instruction and can perceive right and wrong when they are shown to him by another;—but he who hath neither acuteness nor docility—who can neither find the way by himself, nor will be led by others, is a wretch without use ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... that she had not refused Kitty's offer to stay with her; she suffered so from Kitty's inability to conceal the truth. Not that Kitty said anything; it was her unnatural silence that was so terrible. With that extraordinary acuteness that had come upon her now Lucia saw, in the involuntary hardening and flushing of Kitty's face, that in Kitty's mind her father was not only suspected, but condemned. She was afraid lest she herself should in some moments of weakness ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... place, so long celebrated for the study of the law, yet continues occasionally to exhibit proofs of that logic and eloquence for which it has been renowned of old. I am willing to conclude that all the judges are not alike somniferous; and that if the acuteness of our GIFFORDS, and the rhetoric of our DENMANS, sometimes instruct and enliven the audience, there will be found Judges to argue like GIBBS and to decide like ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... "thousand" of Garibaldi, who has a noble and generous disposition. It is he who brings up the child, with a tenderness just touched by severity. Peter's young mind is constantly enriched with new pictures. Thanks to the extreme acuteness of his hearing, he catches the very slightest sounds of nature. When barely five years of age the boy shows his love for music; he spends hours, motionless, listening to the playing of one of the servants who has ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... and the tragedy would have made us very uncomfortable, but never have melted us to tears or excited us to indignation. When he, whose merry and satirical laugh rung in our ears the moment before, faints before us, with "a plague o' both your houses, they have made worms' meat of me," the acuteness of our feeling is excessive: but, had we not heard the laugh before, there would have been a dull weight of melancholy impression, which would have ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... all the animals we had seen the antelope seems to possess the most wonderful fleetness: shy and timorous they generally repose only on the ridges, which command a view of all the approaches of an enemy: the acuteness of their sight distinguishes the most distant danger, the delicate sensibility of their smell defeats the precautions of concealment, and when alarmed their rapid career seems more like the flight of birds than the movements of an earthly being. After many unsuccessful attempts, captain Lewis ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... composed the dominant element of his audience. He writes not for mere blackguards, but for the fine gentleman, who affects premature knowledge of the world, professes to be more cynical than he really is, and shows his acuteness by deriding hypocrisy and pharisaic humbug in every claim to virtue. He dwells upon the seamy side of life, and if critics, attracted by his undeniable brilliance, have found his heroines charming, to me it seems that they are the kind of young women whom, if I adopted his moral ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... The acuteness and the significance of the Captain's eye as he cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words before ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... that the total view of the universe which the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution implies, has had effect in the diminution of the acuteness of the question concerning miracles. It certainly gives to that question a new form. A philosophy which asserts the constant presence of God in nature and the whole life of the world, a criticism which has given us a truer notion of the documents which record the biblical miracles, the reverent ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... and uttered the most frightful cries, mixed with expostulations and commands. His cries were in a moment echoed by a hundred voices. In maniacs there is a peculiar malignity, accompanied by an extraordinary acuteness of some of the senses, particularly in distinguishing the voice of a stranger. The cries that he heard on every side seemed like a wild and infernal yell of joy, that their mansion of misery had ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... made historical reading not so much a task to cumber the memory as a pastime to entertain the mind; in the one chronicle we followed events gracefully unfolded, and in the other discussed persons with acuteness; yet, when to either was subsequently applied the test of absolute accuracy and sound deduction, large allowances were demanded for inadequate research on the part of Robertson and partial inferences on that of Hume. The theories of the latter indicate why and how, with all his intellectual abilities, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... from far off, of the wild waving of wings. They were folded now over the breasts of buried generations; but a flutter or two lived again in the turned page of shock-headed slouch-hatted loiterers whose young intensity of type, in the direction of pale acuteness, deepened his vision, and even his appreciation, of racial differences, and whose manipulation of the uncut volume was too often, however, but a listening at closed doors. He reconstructed a possible groping Chad of three or four years before, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... is well known, by his other publications, as one of the most laborious and most judicious elucidators of mysterious passages in our national history. But the evidences of industry, of minute knowledge, and of logical acuteness, contained in his little treatise concerning 'the ballad-hero, Robin Hood,' are really surprising. The story of an obscure outlaw, who chased deer and took purses in a northern forest five hundred years ago, has been investigated with the painstaking sagacity of a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... just about the delay that he had expected, and Robert's hand sprang to the trigger at the very moment the man pulled his own. The bullet hummed by his cheek. His finger contracted and then it loosened. A sudden acuteness of vision, or a chance thinning of the fog at that point, enabled him to see the man's face, and he recognized the French partisan, Charles Langlade, known also to the Indians as the Owl, who, with his wife, the Dove, had once held him ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of Torres Straits were carefully examined by Dr. C.S. Myers with regard to their olfactory acuteness and olfactory preferences. It was found that acuteness was, if anything, slightly greater than among Europeans. This appeared to be largely due to the careful attention they pay to odors. The resemblances which they ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... in my conduct towards him whilst under my charge; and to see him now would bring the recollection of my own culpability so strongly to my mind, that I am persuaded my life would fall a sacrifice to the acuteness of my feelings." Mr. Martin and Helen now thought it improper to press her further upon the subject; but they agreed that it would be much more satisfactory to them to adopt the plan of going into Langholm, than that at the present season (for it was now December) she ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford

... one of great acuteness, rather antagonistic, as a rule, than sympathetic; and the hands, which were large and yet slender, were those of a craftsman finely endowed with all the ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... where speed wins, the fleetest are the fittest. In fields where strength wins, the strongest are the fittest. In fields where sense-acuteness wins, the keenest of eye, ears, and nose are ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... that the small wild game began to believe by and by that he was not alive. Birds sang freely over his head and the hare hopped through the undergrowth. Yet the hunter saw everything and his very stillness enabled him to listen with all the more acuteness. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... that penetration which distinguishes at first sight the different passions of mankind, which seizes upon the different forms they assume, and, remarking the objects of their notice, discovers at the same time the means by which they are attained." If this be a true statement, the acuteness of feminine observation has gained but little in the progress of the centuries, and her literary sisters of the present era can hardly hope to eclipse the penetration of Marie ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... could never have reached it. Matthew Arnold saw these things in his day, and argued for the Neo-druidism of the sixth century. He was a man accustomed to deal in ideas. You may easily train your mind to an acuteness and sagacity in dealing with grammatical roots, and forms, that will not help you ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... hair, the movements of the body, the tone of the voice, and the rapidity of mental process. To determine quality accurately may sometimes require a series of experiments on the individual, and the success of the examiner will of course depend on his own acuteness of ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... constitutionalist, beloved alike by the king and the people, because, with the doctrines of power, he possessed the acuteness of the diplomatist and the language of the constitution, replied,—"Sire, your presence in this assembly is a fresh oath you take of fidelity to your country: the rights of the people were forgotten and all power confused. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... being anything tangible or very remarkable, I received the impression that there was not exactly the same vigour of mind which I have been used to admire in him, and what he said did not appear to me indicative of the strong sense and acuteness which characterise him. If he has no attack, I dare say he will be able to continue to act his part with efficacy for a long time to come. I asked him in what manner Government would prosecute the inquiry they had promised into the conduct of the Birmingham magistrates? He said what they ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... with them. His reasoning powers were remarkable. I have had harder work maintaining an argument with him in a watch, even when I knew myself to be right, and he was only doubting, than I ever had before; not from his obstinacy, but from his acuteness. Give him only a little knowledge of his subject, and, certainly among all the young men of my acquaintance and standing at college, there was not one whom I had not rather meet, than this man. I never answered a question from ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... bore some resemblance to incipient rigour, and was accompanied by a marked sinking of the pulse. At the time, I set it down to some idiosyncratic, personal distaste, and merely wondered at the acuteness of the symptoms; but I have since had reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man, and to turn on some nobler hinge than the ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... which they would think it just and fair for the world to assign to it, if they themselves had done it; nor must they endeavor to make many little circumstances, that weigh nothing separately, weigh much together, to prove their own acuteness and sagacity. These are sound rules for every ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... street again and there seemed something unreal in the broad pavement, the frowning houses, the glow of the gas lamps. The harmless little key burned his flesh. All the passionate acuteness of life seemed throbbing again in his veins. He retraced his steps, making no plans, obeying only an ungovernable instinct. The street was empty. He thrust the key into the lock, opened the door, replaced the key under the scraper, entered the house ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the direction of her gaze to ascertain the cause of the trouble. For some minutes he could distinguish nothing unusual in the darkness. The moon had not as yet attained much power, and gave him very little assistance; but, realizing the wonderful acuteness of a horse's vision, he decided that there nevertheless was something to be investigated. So he dismounted, and adopting the common prairie method of scanning the sky-line, he ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... considerable resolution. He couldn't however be satisfied with a demonstration that only begged the question; and when they disembarked in New York he felt, even amid the confusion of the wharf and the heaps of disembowelled baggage, a certain acuteness of regret at the idea that Pandora and her family were about to vanish into the unknown. He had a consolation however: it was apparent that for some reason or other—illness or absence from town—the gentleman to whom she had written had not, as she said, come ...
— Pandora • Henry James

... and it was not favorable. With keen acuteness Mrs. Hazleton watched every look, and every turn of the conversation; and seeing that the course of things had begun ill for her purposes, she very soon proposed to order the carriage and return; resolving to take, as it were, a fresh start on the following day. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... the original poets, which, stripped of their justifying reasons, and converted into mere artifices of connection or ornament, constitute the characteristic falsity in the poetic style of the moderns; and as far as he has, with equal acuteness and clearness, pointed out the process by which this change was effected, and the resemblances between that state into which the reader's mind is thrown by the pleasurable confusion of thought from an unaccustomed train ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... appropriately, To Syngramma, The Prose, of Zeno, that such knowledge as we have of his doctrine, independently of the Parmenides of Plato, is derived. The active principle of that doctrine then lies in the acuteness with which he unfolds the contradictions which make against the very conceivability of the fundamental phenomena of sense, in so far as those phenomena are supposed to be really existent independently of ourselves. The truth of experience, of a sensible experience, he seems to ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... perceive as well as ever how the quality of his mind forbids much salutary instinct which widens the system of things to more ordinary men, and yet helps to keep them from wandering in it. I am now reading his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which is very delightful to me because of its clearness and acuteness. It is fine what he says of Christ—'nempe,' that God revealed himself in bits to other prophets, but he was the mind of Christ. I suppose not new ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... Townsend's generous nature should be embittered. Bright enjoyment was his natural element, and how could he be comfortable if there should prove to be nothing to enjoy? It became a fixed idea with Mrs. Penniman that he should yet enjoy her brother's fortune, on which she had acuteness enough to perceive that her own ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... each other, and were in loud and animated conversation, when I was rather put out by observing in the passage near the open door, opposite to where I sat, a pair of glittering eyes steadily fixed on mine; it was too dark to make out whom they belonged to. With the acuteness of a woman, Mrs. Williams's eyes followed the direction of mine, and going to the doorway she laughingly said, 'Come in, Shelley, its only our friend Tre just arrived.' Swiftly gliding in, blushing like a girl, a tall, thin stripling held out both his hands; ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... in mosquitoes; they are horribly pungent little satanic particles. They possess strange intelligence, and exquisite acuteness of sight and smell,—prodigious audacity and courage to match it, insomuch that they venture on the most hazardous attacks, and get safe off. One of them flew into my mouth, the other night, and sting me far down in my throat; but luckily I coughed him up in halves. ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... had heard no sound, but their ears had not the marvellous acuteness of the Adirondack guide, and without a word they hastened to keep up with Long ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... more than forty hours, and had scarcely paused either to eat or drink. Anxiety, hope, and even fatigue itself, had imparted to his body the fictitious strength of fever, and to his intellect the unhealthy acuteness which is so often the result of intense ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... consulting other understandings than their own, and of considering the sentiments and opinions of those who, however neglected in the present age, had in their own times, and many of them a long time afterwards, such reputation for knowledge and acuteness as will scarcely ever be attained by those ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... the distant cities. It consists in the wonderful inequality between his mental and social development. The same person who will be regarded as a boor in good society, will yet exhibit a rapidity and profundity of thought and intelligence—a depth and soundness of judgment—an acuteness in discrimination—a logical accuracy, and critical analysis, such as mere good society rarely shows, and such as books almost as rarely teach. There will be a deficiency of refinement, taste, art—all that the polished world ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... John's character, its least amiable characteristic, which marred it amid many excellent qualities, was not wholly unknown to Melissa. She was by far the more clear-headed of the two, and she understood her lover with much greater acuteness than he was able to bring to the task of comprehending her. It was from intelligent perception and not merely from the feminine instinct for making excuses, that she said to herself that John was worn out with the strain of burdens long and uncomplainingly ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... was referred to a committee, consisting of Messrs. Morris, Drayton, and Dana, by whom a report was made, investigating the bills with great acuteness as well as asperity. This report, and the resolutions upon it, were ordered to be published. Other resolutions were passed the succeeding day, recommending it to the states to pardon under such limitations as they might think proper to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... deal of truth in the remark. Its acuteness surprised Hermione, who thought the Marchesino quick witted ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... and a villain, has stung me to the very soul. And when I consider that this cruel persecution is inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying these great benefits, and expressly for the purpose of preventing my ever deriving the least advantage from my labors, the acuteness of my ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... acuteness and habitual dexterity in such matters, the Canadians have one weak point; they are too ready to believe that Englishmen are made of money. All that an emigrant has to do to acquire the reputation of having money, is to seem quite easy, and free from care or anxiety for the future, and ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With the acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own interest gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd where real lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young man up at the school where the girl ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... have considered the subject of politics with as much acuteness as any man. I have revolved a thousand schemes, which to recommend to the pursuit of the statesman of my own creation. But there is no plan of action that appears to me half so grand and comprehensive, as this of secret influence. It is true the scheme is not entirely new. ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... was a man of high rank, whom friends and enemies alike admired for his uncommon acuteness of mind and his great attainments in letters and science. A contemporary Parisian, whose diary has supplied us more than one of those graphic traits that assist much in bringing before our eyes the living forms of the great actors in the world's ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... general opinion regarding Russian commercial morality, I should say that trade in Russia is carried on very much on the same principle as horse-dealing in England. A man who wishes to buy or sell must trust to his own knowledge and acuteness, and if he gets the worst of a bargain or lets himself be deceived, he has himself to blame. Commercial Englishmen on arriving in Russia rarely understand this, and when they know it theoretically they are too often unable, from their ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... attempts to excuse his pusillanimous submission to his chivalrous dictators. So successful was he in conjecturing and exposing the designs of the malcontent Senators, that the boldest of them feared to meet him in forensic discussion, and recoiled from the honesty and acuteness of one who knew them and did not hesitate to hold them up to ignominy. Through all the dangers which have beset the neighborhood from which he came, he has stood firm in the assertion of patriotic principles; nor to save his own household from disaster, has he yielded ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... occurred to me that, as I possessed neither oars nor other means of propulsion, it would be difficult to move the boat from its mooring if chance or acuteness of scent should lead the creature to my place of concealment. In short, this, with various suggestions of fancy, some of them ludicrously exaggerated, speedily made me apprehensive of imminent danger. Nor was my suspicion unfounded, for a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Moultanee and Hindoostanee expressions, such as 'panee' (water), 'buree panee'[131] (the sea), etc. He was rather startled when I replied 'in Hindee,' but was delighted on finding I was an Indian, and entered freely, and with depth and acuteness, on the affairs of the East, most of which part of the world he ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... faculty of scenting, now it means the power of seeing or perceiving anything easily. In old literature we may read of the sagacity of dogs; keenness of scent. But it is now sharpness of wit; keenness of perception, subtilty, shrewdness, acuteness, penetration, ingenuity. The terms, "attentio," "intentio," "comprehensio," "apprehensio," "penetratio," and understanding are all just so many bodily actions transferred to the expression of mental energies. There is just the same reason for giving to all these terms their old, obsolete, ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880

... the part of the worthy artisan on his way to labour. A stall-keeper in the market, undeceived, hailed him by the generic name of his ilk, and "Jack" halted, taken by surprise. The vender, melted by this proof of his own acuteness, bestowed a foot of Frankfurter and half a loaf, and thus the problem of breakfast ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... there appeared an improvement of appetite that was quite phenomenal, but no accumulation of flesh. His legs and body grew longer; and, with this lengthening of parts, there came a development of intellectual acuteness that was particularly surprising. He attached himself to each individual of the ship. He had no favorites, but was hail-fellow-well-met with all. He developed all the playful qualities of a puppy ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... expense. Newman was willing to be taxed for this purpose, largely, in proportion to his means. Moreover, many of the common traditions with regard to women were with him fresh personal impressions; he had never read a novel! He had been struck with their acuteness, their subtlety, their tact, their felicity of judgment. They seemed to him exquisitely organized. If it is true that one must always have in one's work here below a religion, or at least an ideal, of some sort, Newman found his metaphysical inspiration in a vague acceptance of final responsibility ...
— The American • Henry James

... conceive to be entirely fallacious, as indeed Dr. Brown, in his treatise on Cause and Effect, has shown with great acuteness and justness of thought. We have before remarked, that almost every fallacy may be referred to different genera by different modes of filling up the suppressed steps; and this particular one may, at our option, be brought under petitio principii. It supposes that ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... wanting in candor. Am I or am I not candid? What do you think? It seems to me that a man could hardly be more so—for do I not reveal confidence, and that without the prospect of reward? But, to continue, acuteness of mind is, in my opinion, a very fine thing; it is to all intents and purposes an ornament of nature, one of the consolations of life by means of which it would appear a poor magistrate can be easily gulled, who, after all, is often misled by his ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... philosopher, who had all his life long feared women's snares and wiles, who had looked upon love as a luxury made only for the rich and idle, which unsettles the brain and interferes with acuteness of thought, had allowed himself to be caught like an ordinary man, late in life, when his hair was white ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... daughter; he remembered her tears and pleading on the preceding day; the situation came to him now, as perceptions come to dull minds, with force that had gathered with the lapse of time. He had not the refinement and acuteness of mind necessary to make him understand the disinterested element in Bates's tyranny, and while he sympathised cunningly with the selfishness of which, in his mind, he accused Bates, it seemed to him that the promise to the dead was broken, and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall



Words linked to "Acuteness" :   sharpness, acuity, sensibility, keenness, sensitivity



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