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Stern vs Gruff - What's the difference?

stern | gruff |

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)
  • Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
  • * (John Dryden)
  • stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= 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.}}
  • Grim and forbidding in appearance.
  • * (William Wordsworth)
  • these barren rocks, your stern inheritance

    Etymology 2

    Most likely from (etyl) , from the same Germanic root.

    Noun

    (wikipedia stern) (en noun)
  • (nautical) The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
  • * , chapter=7
  • , title= 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 .}}
  • (figurative) The post of management or direction.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • and sit chiefest stern of public weal
  • The hinder part of anything.
  • (Spenser)
  • The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.
  • Antonyms
    * bow
    Derived terms
    * from stem to stern * sternpost
    See also
    * keel

    Etymology 3

    (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A bird, the black tern.
  • Anagrams

    * * * * ---- ==Mòcheno==

    Noun

    (m)
  • (l) (luminous dot appearing in the night sky)
  • References

    *

    gruff

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • having a rough, surly, and harsh demeanor and nature.
  • hoarse-voiced.
  • 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. p209-10

    Derived terms

    * gruffly * gruffness

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To speak gruffly.
  • * 2001 , Benny Hinn, He Touched Me: An Autobiography
  • “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 .
    ----