For anyone working through “Harsh”, this set of suggestions has been gathered from real puzzles where matching clues were resolved with these same entries.
Answer List:
- ABRASIVE
- SEVERE
- STRICT
- STERN
- INCLEMENT
- SPARTAN
- UNKIND
- BRUTAL
- ACERBIC
- STRIDENT
- AUSTERE
- STARK
- GRUFF
- BITING
- ROUGH
- GRIM
- TOUGH
- GRATING
- ARDUOUS
- BITTER
Synonyms and Definitions
ABRASIVE
- Synonyms: abradant, abrasive material, scratchy
SEVERE
- Synonyms: austere, dangerous, grave, grievous, hard, knockout, life-threatening, serious, spartan, stark, stern, terrible, wicked
STRICT
- Synonyms: exacting, hard-and-fast, nonindulgent, rigid, rigorous
STERN
- Synonyms: after part, arse, ass, backside, behind, bottom, bum, buns, butt, buttocks, can, derriere, fanny, fundament, grim, hind end, hindquarters, inexorable, keister, nates, poop, posterior, prat, quarter, rear, rear end, relentless, rump, seat, severe, strict, tail, tail end, tooshie, tush, unappeasable, unforgiving, unrelenting
SPARTAN
- Synonyms: ascetic, ascetical
UNKIND
- Synonyms: pitiless
BRUTAL
- Synonyms: barbarous, beastly, bestial, brute, brutish, cruel, fell, roughshod, savage, vicious
ACERBIC
- Synonyms: acerb, acid, acrid, astringent, bitter, blistering, caustic, sulfurous, sulphurous, virulent, vitriolic
STRIDENT
- Synonyms: blatant, clamant, clamorous, continuant, fricative, raucous, shrill, sibilant, spirant, vociferous
STARK
- Synonyms: arrant, bare, barren, bleak, blunt, complete, consummate, crude, desolate, double-dyed, everlasting, gross, perfect, pure, sodding, staring, thoroughgoing, unadulterated, utter
GRUFF
- Synonyms: crusty, curmudgeonly, hoarse, husky, ill-humored, ill-humoured
BITING
- Synonyms: barbed, bite, burn, mordacious, nipping, prick, pungent, seize with teeth, sting
ROUGH
- Synonyms: approximate, approximative, boisterous, bumpy, fierce, grating, gravelly, jolting, jolty, jumpy, pugnacious, rasping, raspy, rocky, rough in, rough out, uncut, unsmooth
GRIM
- Synonyms: black, blue, dark, depressed, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, dispirited, dour, down, down in the mouth, downcast, downhearted, drab, drear, dreary, forbidding, ghastly, gloomy, grisly, gruesome, low, low-spirited, macabre, mordant, sick, sorry
TOUGH
- Synonyms: bad, baffling, bully, elusive, goon, hood, hoodlum, hooligan, knotty, problematic, problematical, punk, roughneck, rowdy, ruffian, ruffianly, rugged, street fighter, strong-armer, sturdy, thug, toughened, toughie, yob, yobbo, yobo
GRATING
- Synonyms: diffraction grating, eat into, fret, grate, grind, rankle, rough, scrape
ARDUOUS
- Synonyms: backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, heavy, laborious, operose, punishing, straining, strenuous, toilsome
BITTER
- Synonyms: acerbic, acrimonious, biting, bitterness