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 an unpolished unrefined quality the crudeness of frontier dwellings depressed her a texture of a surface or edge that is not smooth but is irregular and uneven the quality of being harsh or rough or grating to the senses the formation of small pits in a surface as a consequence of corrosion rowdy behavior used of the sea during inclement or stormy weather