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Harshness vs Cruelty - What's the difference?

harshness | cruelty |

As nouns the difference between harshness and cruelty

is that harshness is the quality of being harsh while cruelty is (uncountable) an indifference to suffering or positive pleasure in inflicting suffering.

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.

    • cruelty

    English

    Alternative forms

    * cruellty (obsolete) * cruelltie (obsolete)

    Noun

  • (uncountable) an indifference to suffering or positive pleasure in inflicting suffering.
  • (countable) a cruel act

    • Anagrams

    * cutlery