1
as in ruthless
having or showing a lack of sympathy or tender feelings
an affectless analysis of the cost of the war purely in pecuniary terms
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in stoic
not feeling or showing emotion
the accused remained affectless throughout the long trial
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of affectless
Actually, Stone’s voiceover isn’t affectless.
—
Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 Sep. 2022
The use of an A.I. program to replicate Warhol’s flat, affectless speech to read the diary entries had a strangely fitting logic.
—Steve Dollar, Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2022
Skarsgård does well with the character’s daytime ambiguity (tight-faced, affectless) and nighttime plotting (observant, physically lithe).
—Vulture, 27 Apr. 2022
And the key to the mystery — not the solution to it but the dark center of it — is Swinton Byrne’s quiet, reserved, at times almost affectless performance.
—New York Times, 7 Dec. 2021
See All Example Sentences for affectless
Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 Sep. 2022
The use of an A.I. program to replicate Warhol’s flat, affectless speech to read the diary entries had a strangely fitting logic.
—Steve Dollar, Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2022
Skarsgård does well with the character’s daytime ambiguity (tight-faced, affectless) and nighttime plotting (observant, physically lithe).
—Vulture, 27 Apr. 2022
And the key to the mystery — not the solution to it but the dark center of it — is Swinton Byrne’s quiet, reserved, at times almost affectless performance.
—New York Times, 7 Dec. 2021
See All Example Sentences for affectless
Recent Examples of Synonyms for affectless
Adjective
-
The helmet’s symbolism directs the world to the atrocities being committed upon an innocent, sovereign nation undergoing ruthless destruction.—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
19 Feb. 2026
-
During this ruthless era, famous women were sorted into a stringent binary.—
Stephanie McNeal,
Glamour,
17 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
Our analysis showed how often extreme fitness narratives, hustle culture and emotionally stoic ideals are surfaced to audiences.—
Stuart A. Spencer,
Fortune,
15 Feb. 2026
-
As the conflicted Wahida, Abbas takes the film’s stoic center, shading the character in such a way that her dilemma becomes the audience’s main focus.—
Murtada Elfadl,
Variety,
13 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
But in the shadows, amid growing unease at the blood-thirsty actions of the realm’s merciless Mad King, dissenters from his inner circle anxiously advance a treasonous plot.—
Naman Ramachandran,
Variety,
18 Feb. 2026
-
Fleeing into the desert with her father, she is hunted by a merciless army and forced to trust a legendary bandit (Mackie) with secrets of his own.—
Matt Grobar,
Deadline,
11 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
Across this stony landscape, light sometimes falls.—
Joshua Rothman,
New Yorker,
23 Jan. 2026
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Forgotten animal pens, decaying cages and stony backdrops now sit in various states of abandonment.—
Todd Martens,
Los Angeles Times,
21 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Biel is a pitiless cokehead who, we’re told, later marries a senator and has four kids.—
Ky Henderson,
Rolling Stone,
15 Feb. 2026
-
In his experiences and chronicles of the great ideological battles of the twentieth century, Curzio Malaparte was a shape-shifter—pitiless, clinical, cynical, unsentimental, indifferent to morality and idealism.—
Leah Downey,
The New York Review of Books,
7 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Affectless.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/affectless. Accessed 20 Feb. 2026.
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