Severity; painfulness. Obsolete. (In later quots. figurative from 2.)

figurative. Harshness to the feelings, rigour, severity; hence, hardship, difficulty. (The earliest sense; archaic except in sense 5b.)

Originally: †the quality of being hard to bear, harshness, severity (obsolete). Later more generally: the quality of being hard (in various senses)…

That which induces pain or distress; sharp discipline; severity or sharpness (of something). Now rare.

Hardness; roughness, violence, severity; hardiness of endurance, resistance, etc.; firmness.

The quality of being strait, in various senses. Strictness, rigour, severity.

Hardship; harshness or severity; an instance of this.

Severity.

Severe or serious character.

The quality or condition of being grievous, in various senses of the adjective.

Grievousness (of pain, affliction, penalties, etc.).

In generalized sense: Stinging quality, capacity to sting or hurt; a (specified) degree or amount of this. Frequently in to take the sting out of…