acutance

English

WOTD – 18 August 2025

Etymology

An illustration showing that the acutance of a light grey line on a darker grey background (left) can be artificially increased by adding a narrow dark border on the outside of the edge of the line, and a white border on the inside, as the enlargement shows.

From acute (“intense, sensitive, sharp”, adjective) +‎ -ance (suffix forming nouns indicating conditions or states).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈkjuːt(ə)n(t)s/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈkjutn̩(t)s/, [-ɾn̩(t)s]

• Audio (General American); /əˈkjutn̩s/:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: acut‧ance

Noun

acutance (countable and uncountable, plural acutances) (photography)

1. (uncountable) Edge contrast or sharpness in an image; also, a measure of this. [from mid 20th c.]
2. (countable) An instance of the edge contrast or sharpness in an image.

Related terms

• acuity
• acuteness

Translations

(uncountable) edge contrast or sharpness in an image; (countable) an instance of this

• Catalan: acutància m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 銳度 / 锐度 (ruìdù)

• Czech: ostrost (cs) f
• Finnish: akutanssi, ääriviivaterävyys
• French: acutance ?, piqué (fr) m
• German: Akutanz ?
• Italian: acutanza ?
• Polish: akutancja f
• Spanish: acutancia m

(uncountable) measure of the edge contrast or sharpness in an image

• Finnish: akutanssi, ääriviivaterävyys
• French: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• acutance on Wikipedia.Wikipedia