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Harshness vs Epicerastic - What's the difference?

harshness | epicerastic |

As nouns the difference between harshness and epicerastic

is that harshness is the quality of being harsh while epicerastic is (rare|obsolete) a medicine or herb having such an effect.

As an adjective epicerastic is

(obsolete|rare) relieving the harshness or bitterness of certain bodily humours; (loosely), soothing, emollient.

harshness

English

Noun

  • The quality of being harsh.
  • *1891 , (Thomas Hardy), (w, Tess of the d'Urbervilles) , 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.
  • *
  • *:She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.

    • epicerastic

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete, rare) Relieving the harshness or bitterness of certain bodily humours; (loosely), soothing, emollient.
  • * 1763 , A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences , 2nd edition, vol. II, p. 1099:
    • Epicerastic medicines obtund the acrimony of the humours, and mitigate the uneasy sensation thence arising.
  • * 1856 , Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley, The Sweet South , vol. II, p. 359:
    • Actually the aged dame (partly, perhaps, that she was quite tired with her own violence) listened to my various epicerastic expressions, showed herself amenable to counsel, and replied in very courteous tones.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rare, obsolete) A medicine or herb having such an effect.
  • * 1736 , John Quincy, Lexicon Physico-Medicum , 5th edition, p. 146:
    • Epicerastick […] is a Medicine that assuages and corrects sharp Humours.
  • * 1853 , Francis Campbell, A Commentary on the Influence which the Use of Tobacco exerts on the Human Constitution , p. 120:
    • In a medicinal point of view it may be considered as an inferior sort of epicerastic .