What's the difference between acute and obtuse?

Acute


Definition:

  • (a.) Sharp at the end; ending in a sharp point; pointed; -- opposed to blunt or obtuse; as, an acute angle; an acute leaf.
  • (a.) Having nice discernment; perceiving or using minute distinctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; -- opposed to dull or stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.
  • (a.) Having nice or quick sensibility; susceptible to slight impressions; acting keenly on the senses; sharp; keen; intense; as, a man of acute eyesight, hearing, or feeling; acute pain or pleasure.
  • (a.) High, or shrill, in respect to some other sound; -- opposed to grave or low; as, an acute tone or accent.
  • (a.) Attended with symptoms of some degree of severity, and coming speedily to a crisis; -- opposed to chronic; as, an acute disease.
  • (v. t.) To give an acute sound to; as, he acutes his rising inflection too much.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In January 2011, the Nobel peace prize laureate was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection .
  • (2) It is concluded that acute renal denervation augments the pressure diuresis that follows carotid occlusion.
  • (3) Ethanol and L-ethionine induce acute steatosis without necrosis, whereas azaserine, carbon tetrachloride, and D-galactosamine are known to produce steatosis with varying degrees of hepatic necrosis.
  • (4) IgE-mediated acute systemic reactions to penicillin continue to be an important clinical problem.
  • (5) The cumulative incidence of grade II and III acute GVHD in the 'low dose' cyclosporin group was 42% compared to 51% in the 'standard dose' group (P = 0.60).
  • (6) A 66-year-old woman with acute idiopathic polyneuritis (Landry-Guillain-Barré [LGB] syndrome) had normal extraocular movements, but her pupils did not react to light or accommodation.
  • (7) After a period on fat-rich diet the patient's physical fitness was increased and the recovery period after the acute load was shorter.
  • (8) It was concluded that metoclopramide and dexamethasone showed an excellent antiemetic effect on acute drug-induced emesis, as well as on delayed emesis, induced by cisplatin.
  • (9) The results suggest that RPE cannot be used reliably as a surrogate for direct pulse measurement in exercise training of persons with acute dysvascular amputations.
  • (10) Statistically significant differences were found mainly in the randomized trial, where during the first and second years, respectively, adenoidectomy subjects had 47% and 37% less time with otitis media than control subjects and 28% and 35% fewer suppurative (acute) episodes than control subjects.
  • (11) Tumour necrosis factor (TNF), a polypeptide produced by mononuclear phagocytes, has been implicated as an important mediator of inflammatory processes and of clinical manifestations in acute infectious diseases.
  • (12) During the procedure, acute respiratory failure developed as a result of tracheal obstruction.
  • (13) Four patients with acute brucellosis are described, none of whom had any connexion with farming or milk industry, the source of infection being different in each case.
  • (14) The leukemic T-cells in two patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) had specific features of large granular lymphocytes (LGL), and those in two patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) had L2 morphologic characteristics.
  • (15) The acute effect of alcohol manifested itself by decreasing mitochondrial respiration, compensated by increased glycolytic activity of the myocardium so that myocardial energy phosphate concentration remained unchanged.
  • (16) The introduction of intravenous, high-dose thrombolytic therapy during a brief period has markedly reduced mortality of patients with acute myocardial infarction.
  • (17) The younger patients more often experienced an acute arthritis with sacroiliitis resembling a reactive disease.
  • (18) All five individuals appeared to have acute C. pneumoniae infection as determined by results of serologic tests (titers of IgM antibody for all individuals were greater than or equal to 1:16).
  • (19) The results clearly show that the acute hyperthermia of unrestrained rats induced by either peripheral or central injections of morphine is not caused by activation of the pituitary-adrenal axis.
  • (20) The effect of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and the combination of both on acute and chronic myocardial ischemia were evaluated in a total of 30 male rabbits.

Obtuse


Definition:

  • (superl.) Not pointed or acute; blunt; -- applied esp. to angles greater than a right angle, or containing more than ninety degrees.
  • (superl.) Not having acute sensibility or perceptions; dull; stupid; as, obtuse senses.
  • (superl.) Dull; deadened; as, obtuse sound.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Extensive research among the Afghan National Army – 68 focus groups – and US military personnel alike concluded: "One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group [the US soldiers] generally views the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals.
  • (2) Vessel attempted: Left anterior descending (3), circumflex (4), obtuse marginal (2), diagonal (1), right coronary artery (3), and internal thoracic artery (1).
  • (3) The lesions classified as distal were located in left anterior descending (LAD) artery beyond the origin of second diagonal (D2), left circumflex (LCx) after the main obtuse marginal (OM) and right coronary artery (RCA) after the origin of acute marginal branch.
  • (4) The vascular diameter of obtuse marginal coronary arteries was determined by means of gated color arteriography (injection of patent blue dye).
  • (5) There were still quite a few Marxists at Oxford in those days – Terry Eagleton and his clique were seemingly bolted to the same table in the King’s Arms the entire time I  was an undergraduate – but while I was silly and naive enough to believe in the purifying, energising effects of violent revolution, I wasn’t obtuse enough to think of dialectical materialism as anything more than a powerful heuristic.
  • (6) An obtuse chest wall intersecting angle and the length of the neighboring borders of the tumor and chest wall were of limited value.
  • (7) They analyze the radiographs according to thorough criterions, described in the text, and come to the conclusion that intrahepatic biliary ducts in cirrhotic livers present serious alterations, represented by distorted ducts with focal stenoses, nodular impressions, wall irregularities, increase of the number of obtuse angles and poor peripheral filling, which confer a disharmonic aspect to the intra-hepatic biliary ducts of these organs.
  • (8) Such an ill-informed and illogical standpoint is a worrying sign of ideologically driven obtuseness.
  • (9) By depressing the fundus of the stomach, the angle of His was made more obtuse and the flap valve component eliminated.
  • (10) 7) As a result of cephalometric diagnosis, the nasion appeared to be protruded, therefore maxillary and mandibular seemed to be relatively retracted, and the gonial angle was obtuse.
  • (11) On cooling, there is a substantial change in the unit cell beta-angle from obtuse (93.3 degrees) to acute (85.5 degrees) which involves a shearing motion of 2.5 A between adjacent molecular layers.
  • (12) Patient 2 (62-year-old woman) underwent simultaneous operation of both right nephrectomy and triple aortocoronary bypass grafting (saphenous vein grafts to obtuse marginal branch and right coronary artery, and left internal mammary artery to left anterior descending artery).
  • (13) Laser angioplasty of the vein graft to the obtuse marginal branch reduced the first of three sequential lesions from 60% to 40%, the second lesion from 90% to none and the third from 60% to 20% without the need for balloon angioplasty.
  • (14) The subaortal cone and deferent part of the left ventricular axes make an obtuse angle; the axes of the subpulmonary and subaortal cones have a cross direction.
  • (15) In comparison with white norms, the Chinese nose was less prominent (P < .01), the nasolabial angle was less obtuse (P < .01), both the upper and lower lips were more protrusive (P < .05), the upper lip curvature was greater (P < .01), and the soft-tissue chin thickness was less (P < .05).
  • (16) The cleft group differed from the control group in several major respects: (1) Their over-all growth trend showed a more downward or vertical direction; (2) The cranial base angle was more flattened; (3) The maxilla was smaller and was located in a more posterior and upward position; (4) Ramal height was shorter and the gonial angle was more obtuse.
  • (17) The obstacle could yet be an inability on the part of so many enthusiasts to work together, and an obtuse academic dismissal of a technology that can release to the world a new delight in the past.
  • (18) A difference in the appearance of the hypothalamic and infundibular recesses in the primary empty sella group with SVS herniation (dilated recesses and formation of an obtuse angle) and in the secondary empty sella group with SVS herniation (nondilated recesses and formation of an acute angle) was observed.
  • (19) An obtuse or sharp angle between duct planes can lead to better performance of a particular labyrinth because the "external impulses" in the different ducts may amplify or compensate each other.
  • (20) The nasolabial angle became more obtuse increasing from 80.7 degrees to 90.7 degrees.