different between unkind vs caustic

English

Etymology

From un- +? kind.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?ka?nd/
• Rhymes: -a?nd

Adjective

unkind (comparative unkinder or more unkind, superlative unkindest or most unkind)

1. Lacking kindness, sympathy, benevolence, gratitude, or similar; cruel, harsh or unjust; ungrateful. [From mid-14thC.]
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2,^[1]

     Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!

     This was the most unkindest cut of all;

     For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,

     Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,

     Quite vanquish’d him: then burst his mighty heart;

   • 1720, Alexander Pope (translator), The Iliad of Homer, London: W. Bowyer and Bernard Lintott, Volume 6, Book 24, lines 968-971, p. 189,^[2]

     Yet was it ne’er my Fate, from thee to find

     A Deed ungentle, or a Word unkind:

     When others curst the Auth’ress of their Woe,

     Thy Pity check’d my Sorrows in their Flow:

   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 2,^[3]

     Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.

   • 1950 July 3, Politicians Without Politics, Life, page 16,

     Despite the bursitis, Dewey got in a good round of golf, though his cautious game inspired a reporter to make one of the week?s unkindest remarks: “He plays golf like he plays politics — straight down the middle, and short.”

   • 1974, Laurence William Wylie, Village in the Vaucluse, 3rd Edition, page 175,

     We had to learn that to refuse such gifts, which represented serious sacrifice, was more unkind than to accept them.

   • 2000, Edward W. Said, On Lost Causes, in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, page 540,

     In the strictness with which he holds this view he belongs in the company of the novelists I have cited, except that he is unkinder and less charitable than they are.

2. (obsolete) Not kind; contrary to nature or type; unnatural. [From 13thC.]
   • 1582, Stephen Batman (translator), Batman vppon Bartholome His Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum, London, Book 7, Chapter 33,^[4]

     […] A Feauer is an vnkinde heate, that commeth out of the heart, and passeth into all the members of the bodye, and grieueth the working of the bodye.

   • 1617, John Davies, Wits Bedlam, London, Epigram 116,^[5]

     Crowes will not feed their yong til 9. daies old,

     Because their vnkind colour makes them doubt

     Them to be theirs;

3. (obsolete) Having no race or kindred; childless.
   • 1593, William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis,^[6]

     O, had thy mother borne so hard a mind,

     She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.

Derived terms

• unkindest cut

Related terms

• unkindly
• unkindness

Anagrams

• Dunkin, nudnik

English

Etymology

From the Latin causticus (“burning”), from the Ancient Greek ????????? (kaustikós, “burning”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: kôs't?k, k?s't?k, IPA^(key): /?k??st?k/, /?k?st?k/
• Rhymes: -??st?k

Adjective

caustic (comparative more caustic, superlative most caustic)

1. Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
2. (of language, etc.) Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.
   • 1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette

     Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical

   • c. 1930, W.H.Auden, "The Quest"

     though he came too late / To join the martyrs, there was still a place / Among the tempters for a caustic tongue / / To test the resolution of the young / With tales of the small failings of the great

Synonyms

• (capable of destroying tissue): acidic, biting, burning, corrosive, searing
• (severe, sharp): bitchy, biting, catty, mordacious, nasty, sarcastic, scathing, sharp, spiteful, vitriolic

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

caustic (plural caustics)

1. Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
2. (optics, computer graphics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
3. (mathematics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
4. (informal, chemistry) Caustic soda.

Derived terms

• lunar caustic

Translations