RELENTLESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does relentless mean? 

• RELENTLESS (adjective)
  The adjective RELENTLESS has 2 senses:

1. not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty

2. never-ceasing

  Familiarity information: RELENTLESS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RELENTLESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty

Synonyms:

grim; inexorable; relentless; stern; unappeasable; unforgiving; unrelenting

Context example:

the stern demands of parenthood

Similar:

implacable (incapable of being placated)

Derivation:

relentlessness (mercilessness characterized by an unwillingness to relent or let up)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Never-ceasing

Synonyms:

persistent; relentless; unrelenting

Context example:

the relentless beat of the drums

Similar:

continual (recurring regularly or frequently in a prolonged and closely spaced series)

Derivation:

relentlessness (mercilessness characterized by an unwillingness to relent or let up)

 Context examples 

“Look here!” she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"Then I must speak for it," continued the deep, relentless voice.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He drove along the path of relentless logic to the conclusion that he was nobody, nothing.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Dr Susan Kohlhaas, Director of Research at the MS Society, said: MS is relentless, painful, and disabling, and treatments that can slow and prevent the accumulation of disability over time are desperately needed.

(Cambridge scientists reverse ageing process in rat brain stem cells, University of Cambridge)

“Good God!” I cried. “What can it mean, this relentless persecution?”

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The wretched Indians screamed with terror, but were helpless, run as they would, before the relentless purpose and horrible activity of these monstrous creatures.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania seeks the eradication of cancer through relentless progress in basic research, innovative translation of new knowledge through clinical trials, and state-of-the-art compassionate cancer care.

(Abramson Cancer Center, NCI Thesaurus)

The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the rest of world, but its remote location means it’s the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption, the primary driver of greenhouse gas pollution.

(South Pole is last place on Earth to pass global warming milestone, NOAA)

This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever—there was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)