as in cruelty
disposition to willfully inflict pain and suffering on others
the gung ho heartlessness with which the secret police tortured prisoners was beyond belief
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Recent Examples of heartlessness
The lives of the two children in the story, aged fourteen and four, are portrayed as being as fleeting as the fireflies, and the story is an unsentimental and unflinching account with moments of both tenderness and heartlessness.
—
Ginny Tapley Takemori
september 4, Literary Hub, 4 Sep. 2025
Ginny Tapley Takemori
september 4, Literary Hub, 4 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for heartlessness
Noun
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Colin Gray was charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and cruelty to children.—
Bill Hutchinson,
ABC News,
3 Mar. 2026
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Deliberate cruelty to animals is one of the clearest red flags.—
Steven Yablonski,
CBS News,
3 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Is there also a whiff of nostalgia in the slow movement, for a world disintegrating in brutality?—
Scott Cantrell,
Dallas Morning News,
6 Mar. 2026
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An Iranian man living in Colorado who fled after the 1970s revolution to keep his wife and daughters safe and free, says his generation regrets supporting the change in government that led to decades of brutality.—
Chierstin Roth,
CBS News,
5 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Heartlessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/heartlessness. Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
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