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Gruelling vs Gruesome - What's the difference?

gruelling | gruesome |

As adjectives the difference between gruelling and gruesome

is that gruelling is so difficult or taxing as to make one exhausted; backbreaking while gruesome is repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly.

gruelling

English

Alternative forms

* grueling

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • So difficult or taxing as to make one exhausted; backbreaking.

    • Synonyms

    * (so difficult or taxing as to make one exhausted) backbreaking, exhausting

    gruesome

    English

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly
  • * 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 6
    • In the middle of the floor lay a skeleton, every vestige of flesh gone from the bones to which still clung the mildewed and moldered remnants of what had once been clothing. Upon the bed lay a similar gruesome thing, but smaller, while in a tiny cradle near-by was a third, a wee mite of a skeleton.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=May 04 , title=Bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead citation , passage=Jay Carney said that the US was considering whether to release photos of bin Laden after he was killed on Sunday but that the photos were gruesome and could be inflammatory.}}