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
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
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
-
The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office announced Monday that Hunter Roy will serve six years behind bars after pleading guilty to cruelty to animals and endangering the welfare of a child.—
Brian Niemietz,
New York Daily News,
26 Jan. 2026
-
There was an implicit cruelty behind the exercise.—
Vinson Cunningham,
New Yorker,
24 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
The relentless flow of appalling events eventually overloads the nervous system; the rising tide of brutality, which once seemed shocking, comes to seem unremarkable.—
David Brooks,
Mercury News,
24 Jan. 2026
-
For Hasan as well, this round of unrest felt different, reflecting both the brutality of an increasingly paranoid regime and a new level of public anger and appetite for confrontation.—
Sarah Dean,
CNN Money,
23 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Heartlessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/heartlessness. Accessed 30 Jan. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
