Synonyms of severe

1 Syllable

dour, cold, harsh, stark, strict, stern, grim, trying

2 Syllables

starker, low-born, nagging, harshest, scoffing, harsher, coldest, arduous, scratchy, dourer, strictest, captious, prudish, brutal, clearcut, upstream, hard-won, starkest, frore, algid, rimy, sleety, colder, grueling, ruthless, painful, slashing, trenchant, sterner, smarting, stringent, piercing, hardshell, squawky, scathing, mortal, troublous, sorest, sorer, serious, grimmer, stricter, grimmest, cutting, scratchier, sternest

3 Syllables

disturbing, long-faced, onerous, unsmiling, sobering, cavillous, censorious, tyrannic, death-dealing, silhouetted, effortful, siberian, difficult, inclement, extremest, upsetting, sarcastic, draconian, terrible, uncordial, terrific, satiric, unsparing, abscessed, extremer, blistery, merciless, unsettling, procrustean, blistering, out-of-key, out-of-tune, tuneless, hard-shelled, unbending, unfeeling, exacting, ruffianly, critical, perturbing, speeded-up

4 Syllables

excruciating, definite, weisenheiming, iron-fisted, unhumorous, unamusing, overtaxing, exceptive, ironhearted, oppressive, difficile, veridical, singleminded, depressive, unamiable, intensive, peremptory, heavy-handed, ironfisted, accurate, culpatory, unmelodious, iron-willed, ulcerated

5 Syllables

inexorable, torturesome, superincumbent, unalleviated, overcritical, undubitable, unmitigated, ultraprecise, authoritarian, extortionate