How to Use brutal in a Sentence

brutal

adjective
  • 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.
  • That flight home is gonna be brutal.
    — Lawrence Dow, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4 Sep. 2025
  • That was the brutal part of the night.
    — C.j. Holmes, New York Daily News, 21 Apr. 2026
  • The math, in his telling, is brutal.
    — Boaz Sobrado, Forbes.com, 20 May 2026
  • Just a brutal look here for Tatis.
    — Zach Dean Outkick, FOXNews.com, 9 May 2026
  • Snider has been open about the brutal downsides of fame.
    — Stephanie Giang-Paunon, FOXNews.com, 4 Mar. 2026
  • Cook time is brutal — often just a minute or two.
    — Lauren Schuster, Miami Herald, 13 May 2026
  • The rest of the show is very manly, quite harsh and brutal.
    — James Hibberd, HollywoodReporter, 2 Mar. 2026
  • There’s no getting around the fact that lunges can be brutal.
    — Jeff Tomko, Men's Health, 12 Oct. 2022
  • But testing for it has proven brutal.
    — Zach Dean Outkick, FOXNews.com, 25 Apr. 2026
  • But the backlash was swift and brutal.
    — Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 27 Aug. 2025
  • My daughters were two and four years old, and the process was brutal.
    — Paige McGlauflin, Fortune, 3 Oct. 2022
  • Were the food truck lines sometimes brutal?
    — Michael Deeds may 1, Idaho Statesman, 1 May 2026
  • Part of this brutal schedule, though, is just the luck of the draw.
    — Alex Zietlow, Charlotte Observer, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Again, it's just been a brutal year for the 27-year-old.
    — Zach Dean Outkick, FOXNews.com, 9 May 2026
  • Gilmore came of age in a time where comedies did not have to be so brutal.
    — Krystie Lee Yandoli, Rolling Stone, 25 Oct. 2023
  • But even if his off-court record were pristine, this is brutal work.
    — John Hollinger, New York Times, 29 June 2026
  • Mind games or just brutal honesty?
    — Ben Church, CNN Money, 26 June 2026
  • For buyers, the math is brutal.
    — Tribune News Service, Baltimore Sun, 3 Feb. 2026
  • Summer heat can be brutal in the South.
    — Jessica Safavimehr, Southern Living, 10 June 2026
  • One that may look fine on paper but feels brutal in practice.
    — Vibhas Ratanjee, Forbes.com, 26 June 2025
  • Wednesday was a brutal day for teams on the bubble.
    — Phaedra Trethan, USA Today, 12 Mar. 2026
  • Musk has learned the hard way that making cars is a brutal business.
    — Patrick George, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2025
  • The penalties have been brutal.
    — Parker Gabriel, Denver Post, 25 Sep. 2025
  • Losing any of those in a tight playoff race would be brutal.
    — Nicki Jhabvala, New York Times, 15 May 2026
  • This is close and this is intimate, this is brutal and this is hard.
    — Abbey White, HollywoodReporter, 9 Oct. 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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