as in sternness
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Recent Examples of gruffness
Mackay and Turner are both excellent, two movie stars who seem totally game to be asked to move with real gruffness.
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Sam Bodrojan, IndieWire, 7 Sep. 2025
Sam Bodrojan, IndieWire, 7 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for gruffness
Noun
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Saura had a large sense of the humor, which struck those who got to know him, belying the sternness of his public visage with his playful banter and frequent chuckle.—
John Hopewell,
Variety,
6 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Analyst Michael Leininger, a former San Jose police detective, said standard law enforcement rules in similar situations require officers to consider the severity of the offense and whether the individual is identifiable and can be arrested at a later time.—
Hema Sivanandam,
Mercury News,
17 Mar. 2026
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The severity of the resulting injury depends on, among countless other variables, how the electricity enters the body, and where, and the path the current takes through it.—
Jacob Stern,
The Atlantic,
16 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Sunlight naturally sanitizes, and air drying prevents the harshness of high heat.—
Ashlyn Needham,
Southern Living,
14 Feb. 2026
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The tinted visor that Morgan Geekie wore for two games against the Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars in January could help mute the lights’ harshness.—
Fluto Shinzawa,
New York Times,
1 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Monday marks five years since a series of deadly shootings at local massage businesses shocked metro Atlanta and started a conversation about hostility toward Asian Americans across the country.—
Dan Raby,
CBS News,
16 Mar. 2026
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The price of oil had continued to rise since hostilities started, with the recent surge driven by concerns over global supply distribution and instability.—
Garfield Hylton,
The Orlando Sentinel,
16 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Less than a minute later, Kerr found a new level of vehemence after the Clippers’ John Collins wasn’t called for goaltending on a shot by Gary Payton II.—
Steve Henson,
Los Angeles Times,
6 Jan. 2026
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Such vehemence looked awkward just a few hours later, when The Athletic broke the news that, on December 20, Barca would actually be visiting Villarreal’s Estadio de la Ceramica after all.—
Dermot Corrigan,
New York Times,
25 Oct. 2025
Noun
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But the sheer relentlessness of its joke-cracking bodes well for future, riskier enterprises — as, for that matter, does the natural spark between Matarazzo’s repeatedly foiled would-be swagger and Giambrone’s disarming mama’s-boy act.—
Guy Lodge,
Variety,
14 Mar. 2026
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And that’s been through a lot of sweat and hard work and a relentlessness to that work year in, year out.—
Anthony Chiang,
Miami Herald,
12 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Gruffness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/gruffness. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026.
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