linguistic amusement

Someone might notice that I updated my links list today. (See far right column.) Among those links is now a link (how word-well-wielding is that?) to Thesaurus.com, which I reference multiple times an hour as I write.

I know that while penning my first draft, I should ignore my Inner Editor and worry about finding synonyms later, but I can't help myself. I think I'm addicted. And the Inner Editor is more than happy to supply me with synonymical drugs.

Anyway....I was just indulging my habit a few minutes ago by looking up another word for "relentless." Thesaurus.com gave me "ruthless." Which led me to the following musings:

Why isn't relentful the opposite of relentless?

Relentless is related to the verb relent.
If relentless and ruthless are basically interchangeable, why can one not make a verb out of ruthless?

As in:

1. I no longer felt relentless, so I relented.
2. I am begging you to relent!

1A. I no longer felt ruthless, so I ruthed.
2A. I am begging you to ruth!

I'm so glad to have gotten this off my chest. I'm going to go back to my story now.