HEARTLESSNESS Synonyms: 63 Similar and Opposite Words

heartlessness

noun

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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Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of heartlessness These young graduates start out naive about the heartlessness of the corporate world and harbor illusory hopes for success in unforgiving professions. —

George Packer, The Atlantic, 16 Mar. 2026 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

Recent Examples of Synonyms for heartlessness

Noun

According to the Sheriff’s Office, a judge released Cruz on his own recognizance June 4 following his arraignment on felony animal cruelty charges in Sacramento Superior Court.

— Velvet Wu July 1, Sacbee.com, 2 July 2026
At one point, the narrator, embarrassed by his own act of cruelty, gives a sobbing woman all his money and then leaves her alone in a hotel room.

— Hannah Jocelyn, New Yorker, 1 July 2026

Definition of cruelty

Noun

Lee learned much about the systemic oppression that Black Americans faced from his first student, Jesse Glover, who had been a victim of police brutality.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 3 July 2026
These early precedents in fictional brutality also weaken Thomson’s next point, about literature’s superiority.

— Michael O’Donnell, The Atlantic, 2 July 2026