stern

Synonyms

austere, dour, fierce, flinty, forbidding, grim, gruff, intimidating, lowering (also louring), rough, rugged, severe, stark, steely, ungentle;

Antonyms

benign, benignant, gentle, mild, tender;

Near Antonyms

bland, meek, mellow, soft, soothing;

easy, quiet, tranquil;

agreeable, bright, cheerful, inviting, pleasant, pleasing, sweet;

glad, happy, lighthearted, merry, mirthful, sunny;

featherbrained, flighty, frivolous, giddy, goofy, harebrained, light-headed, playful, scatterbrained, silly;

Related Words

bleak, cold, hostile, inhospitable, inimical, unfriendly, unsympathetic;

adamant, bound, determined, firm, intent, purposeful, resolute, resolved, steadfast, unflinching;

fixed, hard, hardened, hardheaded, immovable, implacable, inflexible, ironhanded, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, rigid, self-willed, set, stiff, stubborn, unbending, uncompromising, unrelenting, unyielding, willful (or wilful);

immutable, unchangeable;

black, cheerless, dark, gloomy, glum, joyless, melancholic, moody, morose, sulky, sullen, surly;

brooding, grave, humorless, melancholy, serious, sober, sobersided, solemn, somber (or sombre), staid, unsmiling;