Impertinent vs Severe - What's the difference?
impertinent | severe | Related terms |
insolent, ill-mannered
* Tillotson
* Jeremy Taylor
irrelevant (opposite of pertinent)
An impertinent individual.
* (Maria Edgeworth)
Very bad or intense.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
, author=Donald Worster
, title=A Drier and Hotter Future
, volume=100, issue=1, page=70
, magazine=
Strict or harsh.
Sober, plain in appearance, austere.
Impertinent is a related term of severe.
As adjectives the difference between impertinent and severe
is that impertinent is insolent, ill-mannered while severe is severe, harsh.As a noun impertinent
is an impertinent individual.impertinent
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- things that are impertinent to us
- How impertinent that grief was which served no end!
Usage notes
Although, historically, definition 2 was the original (derived from the French below) usage; meaning gradually changed to definition 1. More recently general usage has come to, once again, incorporate definition 2. As many older speakers will consider definition 2 incorrect, avoiding the word altogether may be advisable. The construction "not pertinent" is one possible alternative.Synonyms
* See alsoNoun
(en noun)- comfortably recessed from curious impertinents
severe
English
Adjective
(er)citation, passage=Phoenix and Lubbock are both caught in severe drought, and it is going to get much worse. We may see many such [dust] storms in the decades ahead, along with species extinctions, radical disturbance of ecosystems, and intensified social conflict over land and water. Welcome to the Anthropocene, the epoch when humans have become a major geological and climatic force.}}
