Cutting
Cutting adjective - Marked by the use of wit that is intended to cause hurt feelings.
Usage example: her cutting comments serve only one purpose: to make someone cry
Scathing is a synonym for cutting in hurtful topic. In some cases you can use "Scathing" instead an adjective "Cutting", when it comes to topics like attack, nasty. popular alternative
Scathing
Scathing adjective - Marked by the use of wit that is intended to cause hurt feelings.
Usage example: a scathing rebuttal of the latest theory concerning the assassination
Cutting is a synonym for scathing in attack topic. You can use "Cutting" instead the word "Scathing" as an adjective or a noun, if it concerns topics such as critical, nasty, devastating. popular alternative
Mutual synonyms
Both words in one sentence
- Cook, when drunk, could be notoriously cutting and scathing when referring to Moore, even to his face and in public.
Source: Creator / Dudley Moore -
Cook could also be witheringly scathing and destructive when drunk and Moore felt he was the Butt Monkey for his colleague's cutting scorn.
Source: Creator / Peter Cook - The practice was partially abolished in part to protests raised by Anne Sewell's famous novel, Black Beauty, which also delivers some scathing criticism on practices like "docking" the tails of horses and the tails and ears of dogs (that is, cutting bits of them off) to make them look more stylish.
Source: Fashion Hurts
Cite this Source
Scathing and Cutting. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 16, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/cutting/scathing
Cutting & Scathing. N.p., 2016. Web. 16 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/cutting/scathing>.
Scathing or Cutting. 2016. Accessed August 16, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/cutting/scathing.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "cutting" and "scathing" have occurred on timeline