severe

I adjective acrimonious, afflictive, agonizing, astringent, austere, austerus, bearish, brutal, censorious, churlish, coercive, cold, condemnatory, critical, cruel, despotic, difficult, domineering, dour, drastic, durus, exacting, excruciating, exigent, faultfinding, fierce, firm, forbidding, furious, grievous, grim, gruff, hard, hard to endure, harsh, hypercritical, ill-natured, ill-tempered, immovable, implacable, inclement, inexorable, inflexible, insufferable, intense, intractable, ironclad, ironhanded, mordant, nasty, obdurate, oppressive, overbearing, overpowering, painful, peremptory, pitiless, punitive, puritanic, puritanical, raging, relentless, rigid, rigorous, rough, rugged, ruthless, savage, severus, sharp, sour, stark, stern, stiff, stinging, stony, stony-hearted, stormy, strait-laced, strict, stringent, stubborn, tempestuous, tough, trying, tyrannical, unbending, uncompromising, unfeeling, ungentle, ungracious, unjust, unkind, unmerciful, unmitigated, unrelenting, unsparing, unyielding, vicious, vindictive, violent associated concepts: severe penalties II index astringent, bitter (penetrating), brutal, callous, caustic, close (rigorous), critical (faultfinding), crucial, cruel, dictatorial, draconian, drastic, harsh, incisive, inexorable, insufferable, intense, mordacious, onerous, oppressive, pejorative, precise, relentless, rigid, scathing, serious (grave), spartan, strict, trenchant, tyrannous, uncompromising, unmitigated, unrelenting