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RUTHLESS
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Without mercy or pity
Example:
a monster of remorseless cruelty
Synonyms:
pitiless; remorseless; ruthless; unpitying
Classified under:
Similar:
merciless; unmerciful (having or showing no mercy)
Derivation:
ruthlessness (mercilessness characterized by a lack of pity)
ruthlessness (feelings of extreme heartlessness)
Context examples:
But I found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background, and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I told him exactly what had happened, and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Indeed, my lord, they are very cruel and black-hearted men, graceless and ruthless, and if they should come to the ancient and powerful town of Lepe then—
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated failure—herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure—to witness this, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
