Inclemency is the absence of clemency : that is, of compassion, mercy or empathy. The term has its etymological origin in the Latin word inclementia .
For example: "The victim suffered the mercilessness of the murderer, who stabbed him thirty-seven in different parts of the body," "The poorest people are suffering the mercilessness of this government that has decided to cut public spending and eliminate social aid ." » , «The coach's ruthlessness was once again demonstrated when he forced the players to run for more than an hour under the scorching sun» .
The idea of inclemency is usually used when it comes to the lack of moderation or limits when attacking, punishing or attacking someone . A criminal who does not hesitate to repeatedly hit an old man on the head to steal his money is showing notorious inclementness, since he knows that his blows could cause the death of an elderly man who, in addition, is vulnerable due to his old age and He does not have the necessary physical capacity to defend himself.
Take the case of a child who receives a poor grade on a math test. The little boy's father shows his mercilessness by prohibiting his son from watching television for a year as a punishment . This individual does not agree to impose any minor sanctions.
The concept of inclemency can also be used to name the rigor or harshness of weather conditions . A person who, due to a mechanical problem with their car, must walk for four hours in temperatures of -5º C and under heavy snowfall is exposed to inclement weather.
This expression, "inclement weather ", arises from the fact that climatological and meteorological conditions continue their course regardless of the effects they cause on living beings. Since we are talking about natural phenomena and not caused by an individual, the perception we have of them is absolutely subjective: a storm is neither good nor bad, regardless of whether it destroys an entire town and leaves people homeless, because no one « executes said torrential rain.
In other words, if it were the actions of an individual that gave these fatal results, we would say that it is a clear example of inclemency, and for this reason we use this noun to represent what changes in the weather cause in our lives. .
Despite its use in this expression on a daily basis, the word inclemency is not very common in popular language. For this reason, it is very helpful to examine their synonyms, since they can provide us with alternatives for an informal conversation as well as certain nuances to understand their meaning in greater depth. Let's see below some of the most common: hardness, severity , inflexibility, excess, rigor, cruelty, bitterness, intemperance and cruelty .
Among the synonyms just exposed, we can note some that are much more common in everyday speech than inclemency ; Such is the case of harshness and cruelty , for example, that we usually see them in sentences such as "You can't believe there is so much cruelty in the world" or "I really think you are acting too harshly."
We can also find the following antonyms: benevolence, kindness, charity, compassion, indulgence, mercy, mercy and forgiveness . If we think about all the examples of ruthlessness presented in the previous paragraphs, they are situations in which the way of proceeding is exactly the opposite of these words: a ruthless killer, an overly rigorous coach who puts the health of his players at risk, An aggressive criminal and a parent who imposes excessive punishment on his child are all people who could not be described as benevolent, compassionate, or pious.