Englishharsh
adjective
1 his shrill, harsh voice:
grating, jarring, grinding, rasping, raspy, strident, raucous, brassy, jangling, metallic, ear-piercing, discordant, dissonant, disagreeable, unharmonious, cacophonous, unmelodious;
screeching, shrill, tinny, squeaky, squawking;
rough, coarse, guttural, hoarse, gruff, croaky, croaking, growly, growling;
rare stridulant.
▷antonyms soft; dulcet.
2 drenched in a harsh white neon light | harsh colours:
glaring, bright, dazzling, brilliant;
loud, flashy, garish, gaudy, lurid, bold, showy, crude, vulgar.
▷antonyms subdued.
3 during his harsh rule, thousands were exiled:
cruel, severe, savage, barbarous, despotic, dictatorial, tyrannical, tyrannous, ruthless, merciless, pitiless, relentless, unrelenting, hard, strict, intolerant, illiberal;
hard-hearted, heartless, unkind, inhuman, inhumane, unfeeling, unsympathetic, unmerciful, unpitying;
rare suppressive.
▷antonyms enlightened; kind.
4 politicians are taking harsh measures to clear the homeless from the streets:
severe, stringent, firm, austere, punitive, draconian, stiff, cruel, brutal, hard, stern, rigid, rigorous, grim, uncompromising, inflexible.
▷antonyms lenient.
5 harsh words are exchanged when tempers get frayed:
rude, discourteous, uncivil, impolite, unfriendly, sharp, acerbic, bitter, abusive, unkind, disparaging;
abrupt, brusque, blunt, curt, gruff, short, surly, ungracious, disrespectful, ill-mannered, bad-mannered, offhand.
▷antonyms friendly.
6 the harsh conditions of the refugee camps:
austere, grim, spartan, hard, rough, severe, comfortless, inhospitable, stark;
bleak, desolate, barren, bitter, wild.
▷antonyms comfortable.
harsh Oxford Dictionary of English