as in ruthless
having or showing a lack of sympathy or tender feelings
a hard-hearted brush-off to a homeless man asking for money
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Recent Examples of hard-hearted
But successive governments have met these mounting challenges with either hard-hearted austerity (from the Conservatives) or bland bromides for change (from Labour).
—
Mark Sappenfield,
Christian Science Monitor,
22 June 2026
Yet the very readiness with which the hard-hearted General Tilney believes this account suggests that he is used to reliable reports of other people’s wealth.
—
Literary Hub,
10 Sep. 2025
That makes perfect sense to all but the closed-minded or hard-hearted.
—
Jim Newton,
Mercury News,
27 June 2025
And each registered the other’s contention with the hard-hearted energy of her own physical craving.
—
Jim Shepard,
New Yorker,
8 June 2025
Joel, a hard-hearted smuggler, and Ellie, a headstrong teenager immune to the fungal pandemic that’s decimated the planet.
—
Adam B. Vary,
Variety,
5 Mar. 2025
Linda finds her own therapist (Conan O’Brien) insufferably hard-hearted; one of her own patients (Danielle Macdonald) gets ignored in a moment of crisis; a man named James (A$AP Rocky), the super at the motel, befriends her but gets little to show for it but insult and injury.
—
Richard Brody,
The New Yorker,
7 Feb. 2025
The hard-hearted treatment of men is on full display throughout Cecot.
—
David Culver,
CNN,
6 Nov. 2024
In the face of such terror, even hard-hearted Sam has to crumble.
—
Kate Erbland,
IndieWire,
27 June 2024
Mark Sappenfield,
Christian Science Monitor,
22 June 2026
Yet the very readiness with which the hard-hearted General Tilney believes this account suggests that he is used to reliable reports of other people’s wealth.
—
Literary Hub,
10 Sep. 2025
That makes perfect sense to all but the closed-minded or hard-hearted.
—
Jim Newton,
Mercury News,
27 June 2025
And each registered the other’s contention with the hard-hearted energy of her own physical craving.
—
Jim Shepard,
New Yorker,
8 June 2025
Joel, a hard-hearted smuggler, and Ellie, a headstrong teenager immune to the fungal pandemic that’s decimated the planet.
—
Adam B. Vary,
Variety,
5 Mar. 2025
Linda finds her own therapist (Conan O’Brien) insufferably hard-hearted; one of her own patients (Danielle Macdonald) gets ignored in a moment of crisis; a man named James (A$AP Rocky), the super at the motel, befriends her but gets little to show for it but insult and injury.
—
Richard Brody,
The New Yorker,
7 Feb. 2025
The hard-hearted treatment of men is on full display throughout Cecot.
—
David Culver,
CNN,
6 Nov. 2024
In the face of such terror, even hard-hearted Sam has to crumble.
—
Kate Erbland,
IndieWire,
27 June 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hard-hearted
Adjective
-
Canadian quartet Truck Violence have been sloshing together these subgenres in a ruthless manner for several years now, and their sophomore album and debut for the Flenser aims for even higher drops between those peaks and valleys.
-
There was relative peace for 11 years, until a second civil war erupted in 1983, when leaders in Khartoum imposed sharia (Islamic) law and accelerated repression of the southern Christian rebels, which ultimately allowed a ruthless military officer, Omar al-Bashir, to come to power in 1989.
Adjective
-
The poem that precedes it, the Iliad, is a cruel and beautiful work, the ultimate story of war; the Odyssey has its warlike passages, but its central energies seem almost commonplace beside the merciless fury of Achilles.
-
Humility is the posture; the standard is merciless.
Adjective
-
Oscar Wilde, for example, reposes beneath a hulking deity whose iconoclastic castration, back in 1961, did little to restrain pilgrims seeking to smear red lips across his stony physique.
-
Instead of looking like a sleek urban loft, the room can quickly start to feel cold, stony, and impersonal.
Cite this Entry
“Hard-hearted.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hard-hearted. Accessed 28 Jun. 2026.
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