mordancy

[ mawr-dn-see ]

noun

1. the quality of being mordant; sharpness.

Word History and Origins

Origin of mordancy¹

First recorded in 1650–60; mord(ant) + -ancy

Example Sentences

In Odesa, the deadly campaign of airstrikes has brought sharply renewed peril to nearly a million inhabitants of one of Ukraine’s most eclectic and cosmopolitan cities, known in equal measures for its people’s mordancy and joie de vivre.

From Los Angeles Times

Nothing in decades, he wrote, “comes close to the mordancy of … Greener Than You Think. Moore was the first writer to convincingly turn the tables on Los Angeles: The city that had for decades consumed nature in voracious bulldozer bites is itself bitten back and consumed. His novel is about the lawn that ate Hollywood. It is, by turns, the funniest and the most frightening Los Angeles disaster book ever written.”

From Los Angeles Times

Huff doesn’t mention that detail, but there’s mordancy in it; this is a play about the state of the nation.

From New York Times

“You’re not supposed to mourn someone before they die,” he notes, and in Tucci’s voice you hear both mordancy and the deepest kind of compassion.

From New York Times

Although much of Orton’s signature mordancy and wit has survived, his much-vaunted iconoclasm may strike some as tame by modern standards.

From Los Angeles Times