How to Use brutal in a Sentence

brutal

adjective
Definition of brutalnext
Synonyms for brutalnext
  • The traffic was brutal on the way to work.
  • The movie is a brutal depiction of the war.
  • I had a brutal headache this morning.
  • The writer describes the dangers of drugs with brutal honesty.
  • Sailors sometimes faced brutal punishments like whipping.
  • Having said that, the race in the South in Class 4A is brutal.
    — Ben Thomas | Bthomas@al.com, al, 2 Nov. 2022
  • This time, dissidents have broader ambitions, and the response has been brutal.
    — David Faris, The Week, 17 Nov. 2022
  • Hybrid learning was brutal on young children, who struggled to maintain the attention required to absorb information while staring at a screen for hours.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 30 Oct. 2022
  • These questions were made even thornier with the recent brutal attack on her 82-year-old husband, Paul, inside their San Francisco home.
    — Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Liberals across the country have charged that right-wing rhetoric was to blame for the brutal attack against Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi’s husband last month.
    — Fox News, 6 Nov. 2022
  • Many excellent and capable people from rural areas were lost to this brutal movement, leading to a generational impact on China's progress.
    — John Ruwitch, NPR, 24 Jan. 2025
  • In addition to repping a firm that wants to turn the ranch into an airport, the fly-fishing foe is behind a brutal attack on Dutton wranglers Teeter and Colby.
    — Matt Cabral, EW.com, 11 Nov. 2022
  • But the brutal, 10-month siege of Bakhmut spares no one and nothing.
    — David Axe, Forbes, 16 Mar. 2023
  • Gilmore came of age in a time where comedies did not have to be so brutal.
    — Krystie Lee Yandoli, Rolling Stone, 25 Oct. 2023
  • The game got off to a brutal start for UConn, and continued to get worse.
    — Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 19 Dec. 2022
  • But her life took a dark turn with a brutal assault at home.
    — Anna Marie De La Fuente, Variety, 3 Apr. 2024
  • In the face of a brutal crackdown by the regime, protests spread like wildfire in the following weeks.
    — Adam Pourahmadi, CNN, 16 Sep. 2023
  • There are many brutal deaths There are countless deaths in the film, and many are quite intense.
    — Kelsie Gibson, Peoplemag, 17 Nov. 2023
  • The Vikings had a brutal defense at that point and that did not change until the 2023 season.
    — Steve Silverman, Forbes, 22 Jan. 2025
  • Playing in the brutal Big East had prepared the Huskies well for this moment.
    — John Marshall, ajc, 4 Apr. 2023
  • The largest movement of peoples across the seas occurred by brutal force, through the Atlantic slave trade.
    — TIME, 18 Mar. 2024
  • Smith scored again against the Pride despite brutal heat and humidity, and a loss for the Thorns.
    — oregonlive, 15 June 2023
  • Justin started out fine until he was stopped on a brutal non-call.
    — Nick Canepa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Nov. 2023
  • Melany was born along the brutal migration route north.
    — Matt Rivers, ABC News, 10 May 2023
  • The country and much of the world experienced a brutal heat wave last summer.
    — Washington Post Staff, Washington Post, 10 July 2023
  • Tyson was known for his brutal knockouts, as his first 19 fights ended early — 12 in the first round.
    — Greg Rosenstein, NBC News, 14 Nov. 2024
  • At the top of the episode, the 13-year-old was asked by Sigler what it’s been like since her mom began to feel the sometimes brutal impact of the disorder.
    — Kevin Dolak, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 June 2024
  • The resulting footage, which aired on the news, captured the N.Y.P.D.’s brutal tactics for suppressing the protest.
    — Miss Rosen, The New Yorker, 8 July 2023
  • Shame, anger and distress caused by months of brutal extortion are transformed into the need to share the process.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 27 Feb. 2024
  • While many have powerfully argued that no one should be subjected to the broken and brutal deportation system, that is not the approach the City Council took.
    — Peter L. Markowitz, New York Daily News, 22 Jan. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'brutal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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