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acutely

UK/əˈkjuːtli/US/əˈkjuːtli/
adverbC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,088 of 15,258neutral

Acutely means very keenly or sharply felt. Not a background awareness — something you cannot ignore.

It attaches to awareness and to discomfort, so being acutely aware, acutely embarrassed or acutely conscious of something. That first phrase is the commonest by a long way. Medicine uses acute for conditions that come on suddenly and severely, which is the opposite of chronic, and an acute ward deals with those. Geometry has acute angles, which are less than ninety degrees.

Definitions of acutely

  1. 1adverbacutelyIn a sharply felt or intense way.C1

    “He was acutely aware of how it must have looked.”

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₂eḱ-

  2. Latin

    acūta

  3. Middle English

    acute — of a disease or fever: starting suddenly and lasting for a short time; of a humour: irritating, sharp

  4. English

    acute

  5. English, today

    acutely

Built from

  • acūtus · Latin — sharp, sharpened
  • acuō · Latin — to make pointed, sharpen, whet
  • acus · Latin — needle, pin

From acute + -ly. acute comes from Late Middle English acute (“of a disease or fever: starting suddenly and lasting for a short time; of a humour: irritating, sharp”), from Latin acūta, from acūtus (“sharp, sharpened”), perfect passive participle of acuō (“to make pointed, sharpen, whet”), from acus (“needle, pin”). The word is cognate to a doublet of ague. As regards the noun, which is derived from the verb, compare Middle English acūte (“severe but short-lived fever; of blood: corrosiveness, sharpness; musical note of high pitch”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 35 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

acutely in the wild

  • Many humans are acutely sensitive to their physical appearance.

    Human physical appearance

  • All of the islands are acutely threatened by sea level rise due to climate change.

    Sea Islands

  • Resuscitation is the process of correcting physiological disorders (such as lack of breathing or heartbeat) in an acutely ill patient.

    Resuscitation

  • Ingested and absorbed linamarin is rapidly excreted in the urine and the glucoside itself does not appear to be acutely toxic.

    Linamarin

  • In print, the Yetiv will sometimes be distinguished from the Mahapach by being more acutely angled, but in the identical position.

    Yetiv

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the acuō family

acute

acutely — used about once every 12,385 pages · #12,088 · point at the bar for the others