pitiless

From Middle English piteeles, pyteles; equivalent to pity +‎ -less.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪtɪləs/

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pitiless (comparative more pitiless, superlative most pitiless)

1. Having, or showing, no pity; merciless, ruthless.
   • 1849 March 31, Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream”, in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: […], volumes II (Poems and Miscellanies), New York, N.Y.: J. S. Redfield, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 40:

     O God! can I not save / One from the pitiless wave? / Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?

   • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 194:

     Her clothes were torn to mere shreds and tatters, and through the pitiful rags her once white and tender skin showed raw and bleeding from contact with the thousand pitiless thorns and brambles through which she had been dragged.

2. Having no kind feelings; unkind.

• pitilessly

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