brusquerie
Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- noun Curtness or bluntness of manner.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- noun The act or situation of being brusque; an abrupt or blunt quality.
Examples
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This most mistaken opinion gives an indelicacy, a 'brusquerie', and a roughness to the manners.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1752
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Under the briskness and brusquerie, he was a softie and our respect for him was matched by our fondness.
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I hope you have not been so foolish as to take offence at any little brusquerie of mine; but no, that is improbable.
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He knew that millionaires did not always specialize in manners, especially in dealing with dependants like detectives; but there seemed to be something more in the letter than mere brusquerie.
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I had no idea that this speech was simply rude; all I thought was that, even as nothing could be more futile than empty compliments, so nothing could be more pleasing and original than a little frank brusquerie.
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Polina was not at all pleased at my questions; I could see that she was doing her best to irritate me with the brusquerie of her answers.
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The worst of it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear the unprovoked assaults of my bearish brusquerie -- making me, as a matter of course, appear in a very unfavourable light.
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Dechartre, seated near Madame Martin, questioned her on her tastes about art and beauty, sustained, led, animated her admirations, at times prompted her with caressing brusquerie, wished her to see all that he had seen, to love all that he loved.
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But they are to be met in the great social world, where Anglomania prevails, bringing with it the mannish brusquerie and emancipation of the modern woman who aims to be a good fellow.
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Dorothea looked straight before her, and spoke with cold brusquerie, very much with the air of a handsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her admirer.
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The Cossack had perceived that whereas if Malone stepped in of an evening to make himself sociable and charming, by pinching the ears of an aged black cat, which usually shared with Miss Helstone's feet the accommodation of her footstool, or by borrowing a fowling-piece, and banging away at a tool-shed door in the garden while enough of daylight remained to show that conspicuous mark - keeping the passage and sitting-room doors meantime uncomfortably open for the convenience of running in and out to announce his failures and successes with noisy brusquerie - he had observed that under such entertaining circumstances Caroline had a trick of disappearing, tripping noiselessly upstairs, and remaining invisible till called down to supper.
Note
The word 'brusquerie' comes from French.
