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severe - 20 thesaurus results
| Main Entry: | severe |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | uncompromising, stern |
| Synonyms: | astringent, austere, biting, caustic, close, cold, cruel, cutting, dour, earnest, firm, flinty, forbidding, grave, grim, hard, hard-nosed, harsh, inconsiderate, inexorable, inflexible, obdurate, oppressive, peremptory, pitiless, relentless, resolute, rigid, satirical, scathing, serious, sober, stern, stiff*, strait-laced*, strict, tight-lipped*, unalterable, unbending, unchanging, unfeeling, unrelenting, unsparing, disapproving, iron-handed, resolved, unsmiling |
| Antonyms: | amenable, friendly, willing, compromising, easy-going |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | severe |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult, harsh |
| Synonyms: | acute, arduous, ascetic, austere, bitter, bleak, consequential, critical, dangerous, dear, demanding, despotic, distressing, domineering, drastic, exacting, extreme, fierce, forbidding, grave, grim, grinding, hard, heavy, hefty, implacable, inclement, intemperate, intense, mordant, oppressive, overbearing, pitiless, punishing, rigorous, rugged, serious, sharp, sore, strenuous, stringent, taxing, toilsome, tough, tyrannical, unpleasant, unrelenting, violent, weighty, wicked, effortful |
| Antonyms: | calm, easy, facile, mild, temperate |
| Main Entry: | arduous |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult, hard to endure |
| Synonyms: | backbreaking, burdensome, formidable, grueling, harsh, heavy, labored, laborious, murder, onerous, painful, punishing, rigorous, rough, severe, strenuous, taxing, tiring, toilsome, tough, troublesome, trying, uphill, exhausting, fatiguing, no picnic |
| Antonyms: | easy, facile, motivating |
| Main Entry: | authoritarian |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | domineering |
| Synonyms: | absolute, authoritative, autocratic, despotic, dictatorial, disciplinarian, doctrinaire, dogmatic, harsh, imperious, magisterial, rigid, severe, strict, totalitarian, tyrannical, unyielding |
| Notes: | authoritarian is tyrannical while authoritative commands respect |
| Antonyms: | democratic, liberal |
| Main Entry: | captious |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | very critical |
| Synonyms: | acrimonious, cantankerous, carping, censorious, contrary, crabby, cross, demanding, disparaging, exacting, fault-finding, finicky, hypercritical, irritable, peevish, perverse, petulant, sarcastic, severe, testy, touchy, caviling, cavillous, deprecating, exceptive, nagging, nit-picking, overcritical |
| Antonyms: | complimentary, encouraging, flattering, laudatory, commendatory, praising |
| Main Entry: | censorious |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | very critical |
| Synonyms: | captious, carping, complaining, critical, disparaging, fault-finding, hypercritical, severe, accusatory, caviling, cavillous, chiding, condemnatory, condemning, culpatory, denouncing, disapproving, overcritical, reprehending, reproaching |
| Antonyms: | complimentary, encouraging, flattering, laudatory, praising |
| Main Entry: | cutting |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | nasty, hateful |
| Synonyms: | acerbic, acid, acrimonious, barbed, biting, bitter, caustic, clear-cut, crisp, hurtful, incisive, malicious, penetrating, piercing, pointed, raw, sarcastic, sardonic, scathing, severe, sharp, stinging, trenchant, ingoing, probing, wounding |
| Antonyms: | kind, nice, pleasant |
| Main Entry: | dour |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | gloomy, grim |
| Synonyms: | bleak, dismal, dreary, forbidding, glum, hard, harsh, morose, saturnine, severe, sour, stringent, sulky, sullen, surly, ugly, unfriendly, crabbed |
| Antonyms: | bright, cheerful, cheery, happy |
| Main Entry: | draconian |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | harsh |
| Synonyms: | brutal, cruel, drastic, exorbitant, extreme, heavy-handed, oppressive, rough, severe, strict, very severe |
| Main Entry: | exacting |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | demanding |
| Synonyms: | burdensome, careful, critical, difficult, exigent, finicky, fussy, grievous, hard, harsh, hypercritical, imperious, onerous, oppressive, painstaking, particular, persnickety, picky, precise, rigid, rigorous, severe, stern, strict, stringent, taxing, tough, trying, unsparing, weighty, by the book, nit-picking |
| Antonyms: | giving, lending |
| Main Entry: | excruciating |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | torturous, painful |
| Synonyms: | acute, agonizing, burning, consuming, exquisite, extreme, grueling, harrowing, insufferable, intense, piercing, punishing, severe, sharp, shooting, unbearable, violent, chastening, racking, rending, searing, stabbing, tearing, tormenting, torturesome, torturing, unendurable |
| Antonyms: | bearable, endurable, helpful, pleasant, pleasing, soothing |
| Main Entry: | grim |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | hopeless, horrible in manner, appearance |
| Synonyms: | austere, barbarous, bleak, cantankerous, churlish, cruel, crusty, dogged, ferocious, fierce, forbidding, foreboding, formidable, frightful, funereal, ghastly, gloomy, glum, grisly, grouchy, gruesome, grumpy*, harsh, hideous, implacable, inexorable, intractable, merciless, morose, ominous, relentless, resolute, ruthless, severe, shocking, sinister, somber, sour, stern, stubborn, sulky, sullen, surly, terrible, truculent, unrelenting, unyielding, crabbed, glowering, horrid, scowling, splenetic |
| Antonyms: | bright, cheerful, happy, hopeful, joyful, sunny |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | grueling |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult, taxing |
| Synonyms: | arduous, backbreaking, brutal, demanding, excruciating, fierce, grinding, hairy*, hard, harsh, heavy*, laborious, punishing, severe, stiff, strenuous, tiring, trying, chastening, crushing, exhausting, fatiguing, racking, torturous |
| Antonyms: | easy, facile |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | inexorable |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | cruel, pitiless |
| Synonyms: | adamant, bound, bound and determined, compulsory, dogged, hard, harsh, immobile, immovable, implacable, ineluctable, inescapable, inflexible, ironclad, mean business*, merciless, necessary, obdurate, obstinate, relentless, remorseless, resolute, rigid, severe, single-minded, stubborn, unbending, uncompromising, unrelenting, unyielding, adamantine, dead set on, hell bent on, like death and taxes, locked in, no going back, set in stone, unappeasable, unmovable |
| Antonyms: | flexible, lenient, merciful, remorseful, yielding |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | intensive |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | exhaustive |
| Synonyms: | accelerated, all-out*, complete, comprehensive, concentrated, deep, demanding, fast, hard, in-depth, out-and-out*, profound, radical, severe, thorough, thoroughgoing, speeded-up |
| Antonyms: | incomplete, superficial, surface, incomprehensive |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | merciless |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | mean, heartless |
| Synonyms: | barbarous, callous, cruel, cutthroat, dog-eat-dog*, fierce, gratuitous, grim, hard, hardhearted, harsh, hatchet job, implacable, inexorable, mortal, pitiless, relentless, ruthless, severe, uncalled-for, unfeeling, unflinching, unforgiving, unmerciful, unrelenting, unsparing, unsympathetic, unyielding, wanton, compassionless, having a killer instinct, inhumane, iron-fisted, mean machine, unappeasable, unpitying |
| Antonyms: | giving, kind, merciful, nice, sparing, sympathetic |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | onerous |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult; requiring hard labor |
| Synonyms: | arduous, austere, backbreaking, burdensome, cumbersome, demanding, difficult, distressing, exacting, excessive, exigent, formidable, galling, grave, grinding, grueling, hard*, harsh, headache, heavy*, intolerable, irksome, laborious, merciless, oppressive, overpowering, painful, ponderous, pressing, responsible, rigorous, serious, severe, strenuous, taxing, tiresome, tiring, toilsome, troublesome, vexatious, weighty, crushing, embittering, exhausting, fatiguing, overtaxing, plodding |
| Antonyms: | common, easy, light, trivial |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | painful |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | physically or mentally agonizing |
| Synonyms: | agonizing, arduous, awful, biting, burning, caustic, difficult, dire, disagreeable, distasteful, distressing, dreadful, excruciating, extreme, grievous, hard, harrowing, hurtful, inflamed, irritated, laborious, piercing, raw, sensitive, severe, sharp, sore, stinging, tedious, tender, terrible, troublesome, trying, uncomfortable, unpleasant, vexatious, aching, afflictive, extremely bad, hurting, saddening, smarting, throbbing, tormenting |
| Antonyms: | delightful, easy, pleasant, painless |
| Main Entry: | peremptory |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | overbearing, authoritative |
| Synonyms: | absolute, arbitrary, assertive, autocratic, binding, bossy, categorical, certain, commanding, compelling, decided, decisive, dictatorial, dogmatic, domineering, final, finished, firm, fixed, high-handed, imperative, imperial, imperious, incontrovertible, intolerant, irrefutable, magisterial, obligatory, obstinate, positive, rigorous, severe, stringent, tyrannical, uncompromising, undeniable |
| Antonyms: | indulgent, laid-back, lax, lenient, mild, moderate, easy-going |
| Main Entry: | piercing |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | intense to the senses |
| Synonyms: | acute, agonizing, arctic, biting, bitter, cold, deafening, earsplitting, excruciating, exquisite, fierce, freezing, frosty, high, high-pitched, keen, loud, painful, penetrating, powerful, raw, severe, sharp, shooting, shrill, stentorian, thin, wintry, blaring, knifelike, numbing, racking, roaring, shattering, stabbing, stentorious, treble |
| Antonyms: | low, soft, weak |
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
Copyright © 2009 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2009 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2009, Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.
