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severity

UK/sɪˈvɛɹ.ɪ.ti/US/səˈvɛɹ.ə.ti/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,104 of 15,258leans written

Severity is how serious or how harsh something is. The severity of the illness, severity of the sentence, judged by severity.

In medicine it is measured on defined scales — mild, moderate, severe — and treatment often follows the grade rather than the diagnosis. In sentencing it means harshness. In weather warnings it decides the colour. Note severe; and that the Latin behind it is about strictness, which is why severity of manner and severity of illness are the same word.

Definitions of severity

  1. 1nounseverityHow serious or how harsh something is.B2+

    “Doctors were shocked by the severity of his injuries.”

severity is a degree of seriousness.

Where it comes from

Latin severitas comes from severus, strict or serious. Persevere and asseverate come from the same strictness.

  1. Latin

    sevēritās

  2. Middle French

    severite

  3. Middle English

    severity

  4. English, today

    severity

From Middle English severity, from Middle French severite (modern French sévérité), from Latin sevēritās. by surface analysis, severe + -ity.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

Practise this word

severity in the wild

  • Each message is labeled with a facility code, indicating the type of system generating the message, and is assigned a severity level.

    Syslog

  • The Injury Severity Score (ISS) is an established medical score to assess trauma severity.

    Injury Severity Score

  • A NACA score (or National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics score) is a scoring system of the severity in cases of medical emergencies such as injuries, diseases or poisonings.

    NACA score

  • Two are the new factors considered for evaluating the severity supported by the insulation windings both in factory and in service.

    Severity factor

  • Such information is used to anticipate the likely severity and extent of damage, and to guide decisions on the responses needed.

    Advanced National Seismic System

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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.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

  • severe
  • severely