crudity

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French crudité, from Latin crūditās.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹuːdɪti/

Noun

crudity (countable and uncountable, plural crudities)

1. (uncountable) The state of being crude.
2. (countable) A crude act or characteristic.
   • 1889, Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying: An Observation:

     What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.

   • 2021 October 31, Colleen Long, “How ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ became code for insulting Joe Biden”, in AP News, Associated Press:

     Veteran GOP ad maker Jim Innocenzi had no qualms about the coded crudity, calling it “hilarious.”

3. (obsolete, medicine) Indigestion; undigested food in the stomach; badly-concocted humours.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
     , II.ii.1.2:

     For there is no meat whatsoever, though otherwise wholesome and good, but if unseasonably taken, or immoderately used, more than the stomach can well bear, it will engender crudity and do much harm.

Synonyms

• crudeness

Related terms

• crude