Adjective

(er)

Very bad or intense.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Donald Worster , title=A Drier and Hotter Future , volume=100, issue=1, page=70 , magazine= citation , passage=Phoenix and Lubbock are both caught in severe drought, and it is going to get much worse. We may see many such [dust] storms in the decades ahead, along with species extinctions, radical disturbance of ecosystems, and intensified social conflict over land and water. Welcome to the Anthropocene, the epoch when humans have become a major geological and climatic force.}}

Strict or harsh.

Sober, plain in appearance, austere.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Happening quickly and with little or no warning.

*, chapter=1

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}

(obsolete) Hastily prepared or employed; quick; rapid.

* Shakespeare

Never was such a sudden scholar made.

* Milton

the apples of Asphaltis, appearing goodly to the sudden eye

(obsolete) Hasty; violent; rash; precipitate.

* Shakespeare

I have no joy of this contract to-night: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden