as in mercilessness
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Recent Examples of ruthlessness
This was the Netherlands being defeated by a less flamboyant side, but one which offered technical skill, tactical quality and a sense of disciplined ruthlessness and defensive quality that all winning sides must possess.
—
Michael Cox, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2025
Republicans, however, are now wielding state power with growing precision and ruthlessness.
—Time, 10 Sep. 2025
Mallett wants to expand her business without that ruthlessness.
—La Risa R. Lynch, jsonline.com, 8 Sep. 2025
Rupert Murdoch has built a record and a reputation for ruthlessness.
—David Folkenflik, NPR, 8 Sep. 2025
But expert Sung Yoon Lee believes that Kim Yo-jong is positioning herself to take over, given her reputation for ruthlessness, arrogance and ambition.
—Natasha Lindstaedt, Forbes.com, 28 Aug. 2025
Mexico's fastest-rising cartel, the Jalisco New Generation gang, has a reputation for ruthlessness and violence unlike any since the fall of the old Zetas cartel.
—Sonam Sheth
gabe Whisnant, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Aug. 2025
Michael Cox, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2025
Republicans, however, are now wielding state power with growing precision and ruthlessness.
—Time, 10 Sep. 2025
Mallett wants to expand her business without that ruthlessness.
—La Risa R. Lynch, jsonline.com, 8 Sep. 2025
Rupert Murdoch has built a record and a reputation for ruthlessness.
—David Folkenflik, NPR, 8 Sep. 2025
But expert Sung Yoon Lee believes that Kim Yo-jong is positioning herself to take over, given her reputation for ruthlessness, arrogance and ambition.
—Natasha Lindstaedt, Forbes.com, 28 Aug. 2025
Mexico's fastest-rising cartel, the Jalisco New Generation gang, has a reputation for ruthlessness and violence unlike any since the fall of the old Zetas cartel.
—Sonam Sheth
gabe Whisnant, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ruthlessness
Noun
-
But her private letters to her sister Cassandra show a sharper and more astringent person, someone whose cruelty and bitterness were redeemed only by her jokes.—
Lucy Worsley
September 16,
Literary Hub,
16 Sep. 2025
-
Justice came for Petal when her previous owner was arrested and charged with cruelty to animals on September 12, a press release from CGHS stated.—
Liz O'Connell,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
On that day, Islamist terrorists committed the worst savagery against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.—
Amira El-Fekki,
MSNBC Newsweek,
11 Sep. 2025
-
Survivors describe ethnic cleansing of almost unimaginable savagery.—
Nicholas Kristof,
Mercury News,
3 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
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
-
Here was the postwar American housewife—neatly dressed, pretty, poised, active—stepping unwittingly into a scene of utter depravity and sadism that reflected back at this wholesome young mother the darkest recesses of the human mind.—
Maureen Lee Lenker,
Entertainment Weekly,
10 Sep. 2025
-
That might sound sadistic; indeed, sadism is something of a Hitchcockian virtue.—
Justin Chang,
New Yorker,
14 Aug. 2025
Noun
-
More Ethan Miller/Getty Images Their history is defined by brutality.—
Andrew Ravens,
MSNBC Newsweek,
12 Sep. 2025
-
For a country still reckoning with the brutality of its dark past, the trial of several high ranking military officers in a civilian court is a singular achievement.—
Adriana Carranca,
Time,
12 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
In the world of The Bone Temple, the infected are no longer the greatest threat to survival—the inhumanity of the survivors can be stranger and more terrifying.—
Jennifer Ouellette,
ArsTechnica,
3 Sep. 2025
-
Herbert captures remarkable scenes of white visitors indulging in nostalgia for the Confederacy blithely unaware, seemingly, of the violence and inhumanity of the pre-Civil War era when millions of African Americans were enslaved.—
Matthew Carey,
Deadline,
13 Aug. 2025
Noun
-
Netanyahu is the excuse for staying silent about Israeli barbarity in Palestine.—
Uriel Kon
September 2,
Literary Hub,
2 Sep. 2025
-
The vast majority of us see that as an act of cultural barbarity.—
Reader Commentary,
Baltimore Sun,
15 Aug. 2025
Noun
-
Despite the preparation, the 10 or so firefighters on the ground in the grove had to pull out overnight Sunday because of the ferocity of the blaze’s leading edge, Zwierzchowski said.—
Ethan Baron,
Mercury News,
10 Sep. 2025
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But their ferocity on the battlefield eventually earned them the name Hellfighters.—
Alana Wise,
NPR,
6 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ruthlessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ruthlessness. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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