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Brutality vs Harshness - What's the difference?

brutality | harshness | Synonyms |

Brutality is a synonym of harshness.


As nouns the difference between brutality and harshness

is that brutality is the state of being brutal while harshness is the quality of being harsh.

brutality

English

Noun

(brutalities)
  • The state of being brutal.
  • A cruel or savage act.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=18 citation , passage=‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]?  Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?}}
  • The use of excessive physical force e.g. police brutality.

    • Related terms

    * atrocity

    harshness

    English

    Noun

  • The quality of being harsh.
  • *1891 , (Thomas Hardy), (w, Tess of the d'Urbervilles) , Part 6:
  • *:And yet these harshnesses' are tenderness itself when compared with the universal '''harshness''' out of which they grow; the ' harshness of the position towards the temperament, of the means towards the aims, of to-day towards yesterday, of hereafter towards to-day.
  • *
  • *:She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.