mercilessly

[mur-si-lis-lee]

adverb

1. without mercy, pity, or tolerance.

   I was mercilessly bullied in school throughout my childhood.

   Any speaker who goes on longer than 15 minutes will be interrupted mercilessly by the moderator.

2. without reprieve; unbearably.

   An unusually humid July morning had morphed into a mercilessly hot afternoon.

Word History and Origins

Origin of mercilessly¹

merciless ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

After his release, he is hounded mercilessly by an unhappy policeman.

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By 2011, the West African black rhino was officially declared extinct, thanks to poachers who mercilessly killed them for their horns—which people then use for decorative carvings and grind into powder for medicines.

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The war experience was now being mercilessly satirised.

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As a “very, very effeminate boy” growing up in Baltimore, Ben Appel was teased mercilessly.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The stories in this unmatched collection mercilessly tap into the horrors that can fester in the human heart, as well as taaqtumi—Inuktitut for “in the dark.”

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• ferociously www.thesaurus.com
• fiercely 
• relentlessly 
• ruthlessly www.thesaurus.com
• savagely www.thesaurus.com
• viciously www.thesaurus.com