asperous

English

Etymology

From Latin asper (“rough, coarse”) + -ous.

Adjective

asperous (comparative more asperous, superlative most asperous)

1. Rough, rugged, uneven.
2. Bitter, cruel, severe.
   • 1648, Walter Montagu, “The Fifteenth Treatise. The Duties of a Christian towards Enemies. §. II. The Averseness to this Duty Ariseth from Our Corrupted Nature, Promoted by Divers Subtile Temptations of Our Great Enemy.”, in Miscellanea Spiritualia: Or, Devout Essaies, London: […] W[illiam] Lee, D[aniel] Pakeman, and G[abriel] Bedell, […], →OCLC, page 274:

     [T]here needeth onely an unfolding and deplication of the inſide of this order, to ſhevv, it is not ſo aſperous and thorny as our Nature apprehendeth it by the firſt glances that light upon it.

   • 1880, Camoens [i.e., Luís de Camões], “Canto I”, in Richard Francis Burton, transl., edited by Isabel Burton, Os Lusiadas (The Lusiads): […], volume I, London: Bernard Quaritch, […], →OCLC, stanza 29, page 14:

     And as their valour, so you trow, defied / on aspe'rous voyage cruel harm and sore, / so many changing skies their manhood tried, / such climes where storm-winds blow and billows roar; […]

Derived terms

• asperously