as in ruthlessness
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Recent Examples of mercilessness
And though Din Djarian has a touch of revenge-thriller mercilessness about him, that’s more than offset by the fact that his apprentice and symbolic son is Grogu, an infant member of the same humanoid-alien species as Yoda.
—
Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 19 May 2026
Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 19 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mercilessness
Noun
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The new manager was quick to promise change, ruthlessness and sacrifice in helping turn the club around.—
Thomas Schlachter,
CNN Money,
23 May 2026
-
Cruelty and ruthlessness are deemed just, not only in the highest echelons of politics but also trickling down to daily life.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
21 May 2026
Noun
-
Nothing that reflects the sheer abjection of the murderous dog pounds of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or the many individual cruelties visited upon dogs.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 June 2026
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There are allegories that can be read about fear of the unknown breeding cruelty and exploitation, but Disclosure Day is first and foremost a propulsive yarn with thematic roots in hope, truth, empathy and perhaps even spirituality.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
9 June 2026
Noun
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While our money would be on The Last Son of Krypton in a main card matchup, Lobo fights dirty with a level of primal savagery that just might put the Big Blue Boy Scout and his cousin down for a few rounds.—
Jeff Spry,
Space.com,
6 June 2026
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When the Selma marchers faced down snarling dogs and baton-wielding police in 1965, the contrast between their passive resistance and the Jim Crow officials’ savagery echoed the caning of a century before.—
Rob Wolfe,
The Atlantic,
5 June 2026
Noun
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This is pure hatred, and condemning this kind of inhumanity shouldn’t be hard.—
Christopher Keating,
Hartford Courant,
3 June 2026
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Their willingness to film their inhumanity echoed the Nazis of the Third Reich, who likewise filmed their mass atrocities.—
Bobby Zirkin,
Baltimore Sun,
14 May 2026
Noun
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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
Noun
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The barbarity of the institution, meanwhile, is self-evident—but rarely does an author present its abuses so powerfully and vividly.—
The Atlantic,
The Atlantic,
14 May 2026
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The Emperor’s battle arena, for example, is a marvel of moody set design, its barbarity brought to life by the throngs of people crowding to watch the action from atop its grated roof.—
David Ehrlich,
IndieWire,
22 Apr. 2026
Noun
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An extra-dark comedy that veers toward sadism, the film is saved by the chemistry and star power of Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas (fresh off their Romancing the Stone series), with an assist from an excellent Danny DeVito.—
Debby Wolfinsohn,
Entertainment Weekly,
13 Apr. 2026
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Over Your Dead Body is not for the faint of heart, but give or take a rape threat that crosses the line into smug sadism without quite seeming to realize it, the violence lands as more comically cartoonish than horrific.—
Angie Han,
HollywoodReporter,
15 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Lyrics by Ahrens and dialogue by McNally about the discrimination and brutality that Black Americans and immigrants face can seem straight out of the current moment.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
6 June 2026
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Where the movie’s true eccentricity comes in is in its combination of breezy comedy with shocking brutality and gore, perhaps most exemplified in an oddly casual moment in a morgue where Seagal and Wayans find a clue in the form of a serial number on a dead woman’s breast implant.—
Jim Hemphill,
IndieWire,
5 June 2026
Cite this Entry
“Mercilessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mercilessness. Accessed 12 Jun. 2026.
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