ruthless
Americanadjective
adjective
Related Words
See cruel.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ruthless
Explanation
Ruthless means showing no mercy or compassion. If you really want to cut down on the clutter in your apartment, you can't be sentimental about keepsakes. You have to be ruthless and throw out everything that's not absolutely essential. If you're ruthless, you're the polar opposite of Mother Theresa. You get called heartless and cold-blooded. That's one of the reasons the word crops up so often to describe dictators and tyrants, though it can also apply to other personality types — like corporate raiders and colleagues so success-driven that they'll gladly steamroll anyone to get ahead. It finds its way into milder contexts, too: Just be ruthless and rip off the Band-Aid already!
Vocabulary lists containing ruthless
Anti-Antonyms: Words Without Opposites
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Negative Words to Describe a Person
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The Things They Carried
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle said: "Ruthless criminal gangs spread dangerous lies on social media to exploit people for money, and we are exposing them using the real stories of their victims."
From BBC • Mar. 3, 2025
Come check out this special exhibit and join us for an alley dance party featuring DJ Rowan Ruthless.
From Seattle Times • May 31, 2024
But when they signed to Ruthless, Sperling says it was perhaps too fast for naive teens, “We didn’t have our own lawyers. We had Ruthless’ lawyers to go over the contracts and stuff with us.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2024
Meghan McCain is once again opening up about her tenure as co-host on “The View,” this time in a Tuesday episode of the conservative variety program "Ruthless Podcast."
From Salon • Mar. 6, 2024
Ruthless as a gun dog, he picked up with rapid and unflagging instinct the traces of everything in the world I was most insecure about, all the things I was in most agony to hide.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
