harsh

adj

1. abrupt, brusque, curt, blunt, short, clipped; rude, impolite, discourteous, unmannerly, uncivil, ungracious; crusty, gruff, bluff, bearish, churlish, bad-tempered, choleric, splenetic, morose, surly, sullen, sulky; petulant, peevish, shrewish, waspish, irascible, irritable, touchy, moody, grouchy, thorny, cross; bristling, quarrelsome, peppery, snarling, growling, miserable, bilious, rancorous; tart, acrimonious, bitter, sarcastic, mordant, caustic, sour, acerbic; mean, vulgar, crass, offensive, obnoxious, uncouth, ill-bred, ugly, brutish, doggish, swinish, boorish.

2. grim, severe, austere, stern; stiff, rough, Spartan, stark, stringent; unsparing, unremitting, inexorable, implacable, uncompromising, unbending, inflexible, obdurate; ruthless, merciless, pitiless, cruel, brutal, savage; hard-boiled, cold-blooded, hard-hearted, iron-handed, iron-fisted, iron-hearted; despotic, inquisitorial, tyrannical, abusive, coercive, punitive; distressing, agonizing, afflictive, torturous, tormenting, painful, racking, grinding, biting, cutting; unkind, uncompas-sionate, remorseless, insensitive, unfeeling, unconcerned, inhuman, soulless.

3. desolate, stark, bare, barren, rugged, rough, bleak, waste, wild, inhospitable, empty.

4.(of sounds) grating, jarring, strident, grinding, twanging, clashing, sour; dissonant, cacophonous, unharmonious, discordant, untuneful, unmelodious, Music. atonal; shrill, acute, jangling, ear-piercing; guttural, husky, hoarse, scratching, rasping, gravelly, raspy, croaking, squawking.

5. rough, jagged, coarse, coarse-grained, rough-grained; scraggy, rugged, craggy, choppy, bumpy, lumpy; wrinkled, rugose, corrugated; knotted, nodose, nodous, gnarled; uneven, irregular, broken, abrupt; unpolished, unsmooth.

6.(of sight and color) unrefined, crude, raw; blatant, bold, gaudy, garish, flaunting, flashy, loud, crass, brassy; inartistic, ungraceful, unaesthetic, rude, vulgar, repellent, offensive, distasteful.