astringency

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a sharp astringent taste; the taste experience when a substance causes the mouth to pucker
noun the ability to contract or draw together soft body tissues to check blood flow or restrict secretion of fluids

astringent + -cy

Observed the tree called gharod, or gharoth, or gurd; it bears a seed-pod which is used in tanning leather, from its great astringency. — Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846, James Richardson
If these waters, from a small degree of astringency, are of some service in the diabetes, diarrhoea, and night sweats, when the secretions are too much increased, must not they do harm in the same proportion, where the humours are obstructed, as in the asthma, scurvy, gout and dropsy?--Now we talk of the dropsy, here is a strange fantastical oddity, one of your brethren, who harangues every day in the Pump-room, as if he was hired to give lectures on all subjects whatsoever--I know not what to make of him--Sometimes he makes shrewd remarks; at other times he talks like the greatest simpleton in nature--He has read a great deal; but without method or judgment, and digested nothing. — The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, T. (Tobias) Smollett

astringence

Type a word, a sentence, a book title, or a link to an English article. WordNet and the Classics answer.

Try

A library of classics · a vault of words · instant etymology & meaning