as in mercilessness
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Recent Examples of Synonyms for ruthlessness
Noun
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The new law adds to existing municipal ordinances that forbid animal cruelty or neglect, including leaving a pet in too small of a space or outside in the hot Florida sun.—
Shira Moolten,
Sun Sentinel,
3 July 2025 -
Miller faces four counts of cruelty to a companion animal and 34 counts of complicity.—
Aaron Valdez,
The Enquirer,
2 July 2025
Noun
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In that kind of large-scale project, Thompson-Jones traces echoes of a brutal legacy: the savagery of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s Arctic infrastructure campaign, in which roads, railways, and mines were built by prisoners and forced laborers, many of whom died during the construction.—
Michael Albertus,
Foreign Affairs,
24 June 2025
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To visit these places is to be shocked anew by the savagery that was the defining trait of the Jim Crow South — and the astonishing courage of the people who took part in the struggle for freedom and justice.—
Steve Chapman,
Chicago Tribune,
4 June 2025
Noun
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All circled the same themes: surveillance, body image, sadism, hyperfemininity, male (heterosexual) desire and women’s obligation to fulfill it.—
Dayna Tortorici,
New Yorker,
9 June 2025
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The book’s a meld of true crime, memoir and social commentary, but with a mission: to shock readers into a deeper understanding of the American Nightmare, ecological devastation entwined with senseless sadism.—
Hamilton Cain,
Los Angeles Times,
5 June 2025
Noun
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Pellegrino does get into the brutality of the Japanese forces.—
Mike Fleming Jr,
Deadline,
27 June 2025
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Yet, in the nearly two years since then, the brutality and intensity of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip have mobilized opposition around the world.—
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib,
The Atlantic,
26 June 2025
Noun
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The show’s creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, has spoken movingly of his mixed feelings about the way his brutal satire of late-stage capitalism’s rapacious inhumanity has resonated so deeply with viewers around the world.—
Patrick Brzeski,
HollywoodReporter,
30 June 2025
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Host Andrew Zimmern broke from his teleprompter script to decry the inhumanity of ICE raids.—
Caroline Hatchett,
Robb Report,
19 June 2025
Noun
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As in Squid Game, dystopian drama often plays on the barbarity of entertainment, impossible promises of curing human weakness, and finds salvation in our best qualities: solidarity, compassion, and unity.—
Rory Doherty,
Time,
27 June 2025
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Enforcing immigration policy does not have to be inhumane, but the Trump administration is gloating in the very barbarity.—
Ali Breland,
The Atlantic,
14 June 2025
Noun
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Amid the ferocity, the Grant Parkers always sounded whetted and clean, moving through the works’ shifting meters with fearsome precision.—
Hannah Edgar,
Chicago Tribune,
21 June 2025
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One thing that set 28 Days Later apart from other movies in the undead genre was the speed and ferocity that propelled its villains, quite unlike the lumbering corpses in Night of the Living Dead.—
Madison Bloom,
Pitchfork,
20 June 2025
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“Ruthlessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ruthlessness. Accessed 13 Jul. 2025.
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