roughness

1. 1.

   a texture of a surface or edge that is not smooth but is irregular and uneven

   Synonymsraggedness

   Antonymssmoothness

   Broadertexture

   Narrowerscalinesscoarsenessslubharshnessshagginessbumpinessprickliness
2. 2.

   the quality of being harsh or rough or grating to the senses

   Synonymsharshness

   Broaderunpleasantness

   Narrowergruffness
3. 3.

   an unpolished unrefined quality

   “the crudeness of frontier dwellings depressed her”

   Synonymscrudeness

   Broaderinelegance
4. 4.

   used of the sea during inclement or stormy weather

   Synonymschoppinessrough water

   Broaderstorminess
5. 5.

   rowdy behavior

   Synonymsrowdinessrowdyismdisorderliness

   Broaderdisorder
6. 6.

   the formation of small pits in a surface as a consequence of corrosion

   Synonymspittingindentation

   Broadercorrosion
7. 7.

   harsh or severe speech or behavior

   “men associate the roughness of nonstandard working-class speech with masculinity”

   “the roughness of her voice was a signal to keep quiet”

   Broaderintensification

Other forms of roughness

plural

roughnesses·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about roughness

What does roughness mean?

roughness means "a texture of a surface or edge that is not smooth but is irregular and uneven". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in roughness?

roughness has 2 syllables: rough-ness. The stress falls on "rough". In IPA it is /ˈɹʌfnəs/.

What is another word for roughness?

Close synonyms include raggedness, harshness, crudeness, choppiness, rough water. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of roughness?

The recorded antonyms are smoothness.

Is roughness a common word?

roughness is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.