unkindness
/ʌnˈkʌɪndnəs
/noun [mass noun]
1Inconsiderate and harsh behaviour: she had had enough of her father’s unkindness...
- ‘Meanness’ connotes not only the personal characteristics of spite, unkindness, or aggression, but also the social conditions of shabbiness and impoverishment.
- In the face of your inconsideration or unkindness, I may experience pain, indignation, chagrin, shame, annoyance, bashfulness and more besides.
- In apparently impossible circumstances, where nothing but harshness and unkindness prevail, two human beings make contact, or at least one reaches out a hand to another.
Synonyms
nastiness, unpleasantness, disagreeableness, cruelty, spite, malice, meanness, mean-spiritedness, viciousness, malevolence, uncharitableness;
harshness, callousness, pitilessness, ruthlessness, unfeelingness, compassionlessness, shabbiness, hard-heartedness, heartlessness, cold-heartedness, mercilessness, brutality, savagery, savageness, inhumanity;
unfriendliness, inconsiderateness, insensitivity, ungenerousness, inhospitality, unkindliness, hostility
informal beastliness, bitchiness, cattiness
2 [count noun] rare A flock of ravens: an unkindness of ravens flew overhead...
- A skull rests on the threshold as a reminder of the wages of sin, and, above, an unkindness of ravens presides.
- Little Jakob was first excited to see an unkindness of ravens.
- The unkindness of ravens at the Tower of London is about to enjoy the kindness of taxpayers, in a move designed to improve the birds' accommodation.