Other forms: harsher, harshest
Harsh means rough in a way that hurts: too hard, too loud, too cold, too cruel. A strip light straight in your eyes, a winter that kills the plants in their pots, a teacher who pulls your work apart in front of the class.
It works on the senses first. A harsh light, a harsh voice, the harsh smell of bleach, the scrape of a chair that sounds harsh in a quiet room. It works on people the same way: harsh words, a harsh punishment, harsh criticism from someone whose opinion you wanted. And it works on conditions, so a harsh winter, a harsh landscape, harsh chemicals that strip the colour out of clothes. Harsh reality is the fixed pair everyone reaches for when naming the truth they would rather not face, and in casual speech that's harsh means someone went too far.
1adjectiveharshCruel or severe; showing no softness.~36%
“The punishment seemed harsh for a first offence.”
2adjectivesoundRough and unpleasant to hear, see, smell or touch.~9%
“Her voice went harsh when she shouted over the machines.”
3adjectivebleakDifficult and unforgiving to live in or with.~55%
“Nothing grows in that harsh, stony soil.”
synonyms: bleak, punishing
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Harsh comes from Middle English harsk, tied to Old Norse harskr and to Middle Low German harsch, rough. That Low German word is thought to mean literally hairy, from haer, hair. The oldest picture inside harsh is a coarse hairy surface, the kind you would not want against your skin.
Proto-West Germanic
*hār
Old Saxon
hār
Middle Low German
harsch — rough
Old Norse
harskr
Middle English
harsk
English, today
harsh
Built from
From Middle English harsk. Century derived the term from Old Norse harskr (whence Danish harsk (“rancid”), dialectal Norwegian hersk, Swedish härsk, Swedish härsken); the Middle English Dictionary derives it from that and Middle Low German harsch (“rough”) literally “hairy” (whence also German harsch), from haer (“hair”), from Old Saxon hār, from Proto-West Germanic hār; the Oxford Dictionary of English derives it from Middle Low German alone.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA