acute.

1. Strong, severe, or keenly felt, especially of pain, difficulty, or emotion.

2. Quick to notice or understand fine details.

3. Developing rapidly or having a relatively short course, rather than persisting chronically.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• acute distress
• acute shortage

On the page

The closure created an acute shortage of trained staff.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary / elevated general. Forms: Comparative more acute; superlative most acute when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Commonness: moderately common.