acute

Brief, quick, short.

It was an acute event.

Surprisingly, this analysis revealed that acute exposure to solvent vapors at concentrations below those associated with long-term effects appears to increase the risk of a fatal automobile accident. Furthermore, this increase in risk is comparable to the risk of death from leukemia after long-term exposure to benzene, another solvent, which has the well-known property of causing this type of cancer.

High or shrill.

an acute accent or tone

The nimble Fly's Wings quicker were / Than those of her Competitor [a bee], / As may by this appear; / For an acuter Tone they made, / And in a ſharper Key they play'd, / (Which made the matter clear.)

Intense; sensitive; sharp.

She had an acute sense of honour

Eagles have very acute vision.

Urgent.

His need for medical attention was acute.

[…] Ahab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly altered, and the sail to be shortened. The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream.

With the sides meeting directly to form an acute angle (at an apex or base).

204. Eremophila abietina […] Corolla 23–35 mm long, cream or very pale lilac, lobes faintly metallic bluish green or lilac, tube occasionally brownish, prominently purple spotted; outer and inner surfaces glandular-pubescent; lobes acute, lobe of lower lip strongly reflexed.

A person who has the acute form of a disorder, such as schizophrenia.

Anne Marie had been assigned a ‘constant supervision’ status. […] Always avoiding the unrest of the television lounge, she would sometimes join some of the older ‘acutes’ who sat isolated in metal chairs at the end of the hallway and gaze out of the window with them.

An accent or tone higher than others.

[I]t would be strange if we wer to recite Homer, raising our voices on the acutes, lowering them on the graves, and managing the circumflexes as well as we could, yet to recite Virgil without any of these regular elevations, depressions, and circumbendibus.

There would be no sense in our assuming that even an independent circumflex after an acute might be raised in pitch for the sake of clearer distinction from that acute; for it is sufficiently distinguished by its sliding tone; and, if it had any right to be further distinguished, an acute following an acute would have much more right; while, nevertheless, any number of acutes are allowed to succeed one another, without modification of their natural character.

An acute accent (´).

The word ‘cafe’ often has an acute over the ‘e’.

The number of Notes in this Table, without either acute or grave marks (´ or `), is 75. Of those bearing one acute mark (´) it is 74, of those with two acutes (´´) 70, with three acutes (´´´ or ´³) 51, […]

To give an acute sound to.

He acutes his rising inflection too much.

Polyſyllables having their Penultima long by poſition are acuted; as Camíllus: but having it long by nature and the last ſhort, they are circumflected; as, Românus, amâre: except the Compounds of ſit, whose Ultima is acuted; as Malefít, calefít, benefít, ſatisfít.

To make acute; to sharpen, to whet.

[A]n old Farmer […] uſed, when fuddled over Night, to walk naked, or only in his Shirt, until he had cooled himſelf throughly, […] This Courſe may not be improperly call'd a Balenum Aerium, and may be of great Uſe to ſober People, as well as the Fuddlers; for running empty, after Sleep and Concoction, warms the Blood and Spirits, acutes the Circulations, fans and cools the Lungs, helps both Excretion and Secretion; […]

It had been over a week that I had not been over to visit my most favorable place. Since I was allowed a rare opening that jaggled an intense curiosity, it acuted my senses with great anticipation that a living current was felt in my center, brought on by something truly new.