variants
also stoney
as in ruthless
having or showing a lack of sympathy or tender feelings
the judge's stony demeanor didn't raise the defendant's hopes for a more lenient sentence
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of stony
Except every movie tends to get five buckets, while the rest of their time curdles into Tim sharing too much about his personal life as Gregg stares on, his stony, Buster Keaton-like face saying nothing and everything.
—
Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune, 19 Mar. 2026
That same stony resistance stymied Henry’s next attempt at commercial success, a parasol with a snap-on cover that could be changed to match a woman’s outfit.
—Shoshi Parks, Popular Science, 19 Mar. 2026
The telegraph-poling parties found traces of gold in the stony hills around Pine Creek, south of Darwin, and in 1872 gold-prospecting parties began to arrive through Port Darwin.
—Britannica Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Mar. 2026
High Street began to slope upward, and the terrain became stonier around the sides of the road as Revere and his horse, Brown Beauty, ascended Rock Hill.
—Kostya Kennedy, Time, 16 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for stony
Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune, 19 Mar. 2026
That same stony resistance stymied Henry’s next attempt at commercial success, a parasol with a snap-on cover that could be changed to match a woman’s outfit.
—Shoshi Parks, Popular Science, 19 Mar. 2026
The telegraph-poling parties found traces of gold in the stony hills around Pine Creek, south of Darwin, and in 1872 gold-prospecting parties began to arrive through Port Darwin.
—Britannica Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Mar. 2026
High Street began to slope upward, and the terrain became stonier around the sides of the road as Revere and his horse, Brown Beauty, ascended Rock Hill.
—Kostya Kennedy, Time, 16 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for stony
Recent Examples of Synonyms for stony
Adjective
-
Social media users on Twitter, now known as X, were absolutely ruthless with Beltrán at the time.—
Samantha Agate,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
21 Apr. 2026
-
Director Nick Castle’s 1984 sci-fi adventure of a trailer park kid recruited to join an interstellar war against Xur and the ruthless Ko-Dan Armada is still a fantastic flick over 40 years after its original theatrical release.—
Jeff Spry,
Space.com,
20 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
This commentary was not from a wonkish TikToker nor a network pundit but from TMZ, the merciless purveyor of celebrity dirt, which published the images of Graham after a citizen vacationer noticed the senator flitting through the theme park and sent pictures.—
Paula Mejía,
New Yorker,
15 Apr. 2026
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But in the shadows, amid growing unease at the bloodthirsty actions of the realm’s merciless Mad King, dissenters from his inner circle anxiously advance a treasonous plot.—
Ryan Brennan
April 3,
Charlotte Observer,
3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Larysa, Oleh, and their cousins would scale apple trees and bite into unripe fruit, hard and green.—
Lizzie Johnson,
New Yorker,
25 Apr. 2026
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The best way to do that is to take the least amount of gas (since the tires are hard like hockey pucks and don’t wear out much).—
Jordan Bianchi,
New York Times,
25 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The idea is to use places, such as Antarctica and space, as real-world testbeds where technologies can be proven under genuinely harsh conditions, like extreme cold, isolation, limited logistics, and high system reliability requirements.—
Georgina Jedikovska,
Interesting Engineering,
23 Apr. 2026
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And scientists that have been working on the data have been able to pinpoint that maybe that was the cause of a very harsh winter over Europe that happened in 2010.—
Dana Taylor,
USA Today,
23 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Iran, with its massive military capabilities, its oil wealth, its appetite for regional hegemony and its obdurate Islamism may have been the foremost obstacle to Israel’s integration into the region since 1979.—
Ron Kampeas,
Sun Sentinel,
2 Mar. 2026
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Despite the deluge of new data, the megaliths had given up none of their obdurate strangeness.—
Alex Ross,
New Yorker,
24 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Stony.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stony. Accessed 25 Apr. 2026.
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