Stern vs Gruff - What's the difference?
stern | gruff |
Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
* (John Dryden)
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Grim and forbidding in appearance.
* (William Wordsworth)
(nautical) The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
* , chapter=7
, title= (figurative) The post of management or direction.
* (William Shakespeare)
The hinder part of anything.
The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.
(l) (luminous dot appearing in the night sky)
having a rough, surly, and harsh demeanor and nature.
hoarse-voiced.
To speak gruffly.
* 2001 , Benny Hinn, He Touched Me: An Autobiography
As a noun stern
is a star; a small luminous dot that can be seen on the night sky.As an adjective gruff is
having a rough, surly, and harsh demeanor and nature.As a verb gruff is
to speak gruffly.stern
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) stern, sterne, sturne, from (etyl) .Adjective
(er)- stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
Snakes and ladders, passage=Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins.}}
- these barren rocks, your stern inheritance
Etymology 2
Most likely from (etyl) , from the same Germanic root.Noun
(wikipedia stern) (en noun)Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=Old Applegate, in the stern', just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the ' stern .}}
- and sit chiefest stern of public weal
- (Spenser)
Antonyms
* bowDerived terms
* from stem to stern * sternpostSee also
* keelEtymology 3
(etyl)Anagrams
* * * * ---- ==Mòcheno==Noun
(m)References
*gruff
English
Adjective
(er)Quotations
* 1727' "The manner of it was more after the pleasing Transports of those ancient Poets you are often charm'd with, than after the fierce unsociable way of modern Zealots; those starch'd '''gruff Gentlemen, who guard Religion as Bullys to a Mistress, and give us the while a very indifferent Opinion of their Lady's Merit, and their own Wit, by adoring what they neither allow to be inspected by others, nor care themselves to examine in a fair light." — Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury. ''Characteristicks of men, manners, opinions, times . Vol II. p218 * 1729' "They had no Titles of Honour among them, but such as denoted some Bodily Strength or Perfection, as such an one ''the Tall'', such an one ''the Stocky'', such an one the '''Gruff ." — Joseph Addison, Richard Steele. ''The Spectator. Vol VI, No 433. p146 * 1825' "Mr. Suberville, as well as she, surprised and pleased at this proof of politeness so unsuited to his gouty appearance and '''gruff manners, looked at him in astonishment, but were sorry to perceive him stoop down as if he had strained his leg in the exertion, while the pain it caused seemed to have driven every drop of his blood into his sallow face." — Thomas Colley Grattan. ''High-ways and by-ways. Vol III. p209-10Derived terms
* gruffly * gruffnessVerb
(en verb)- “Who gave you that?” replied my father angrily. “Did you bribe someone?” “No,” I told him. “It was a gift, from some people who really want me to be on this trip.” “Fine,” he gruffed .