gruffness
- n a throaty harshness
- n an abrupt discourteous manner
- He went on paying low wages, giving away $100 bills, warning his employes never to marry, in general behaving with the gruffness expected of him.
- Her feistiness meshes well with Duvall's homey gruffness: they're the Hepburn and Tracy of the European Theater.
- Asner, 79, who used his slow burn brilliantly on the great Mary Tyler Moore '70s sitcom, had the gruffness and deadpan comic timing to bring Carl to vocal life.