harshly

comparative harshlier · comparative more harshly · superlative harshliest · superlative most harshly

1. In a harsh manner; severely.

   Yet, if I name my guilt, 't is not to boast, / None can deem harshlier of me than I deem [...].

   1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, stanza 193

   4 more examples

   The traveller hears me now and then, ⁠And sometimes harshly will he speak: ⁠‘This fellow would make weakness weak, And melt the waxen hearts of men.’

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXI”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 35

   The turmoil went on—no rest, no peace. […] It was nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes ache, the men's voices grated harshly, and the girls' faces saddened one.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   Oh, those cruel and blitheless asses! Did they know my thoughts, my dreams, as I searched the sweet mystery of myself for the hidden meaning of my life? They did not. They judged me harshly for a few paltry actions.

   1968, Paul Ritchie, Confessions of a People Lover: A Novel - Page 51

   Clinton said she is has grown “very disappointed and sorry that Christianity, which has such great love at its core, is sometimes used to condemned so quickly and judge so harshly when I think part of the message that I certainly have tried to understand and live with is to look at yourself first.”

   2016 January 25, Dan Merica, quoting Hillary Clinton, “In personal exchange, Clinton laments using faith to ‘judge so harshly’”, in CNN, archived from the original on 06 Sep 2022