Adjacent Words

Cruel definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CRUEL, a. [L. See Crude and Rude.]
1. Disposed to give pain to others, in body or mind; willing or pleased to torment, vex or afflict; inhuman; destitute of pity, compassion or kindness; fierce; ferocious; savage; barbarous; hardhearted; applied to persons or their dispositions.
They are cruel, and have no mercy. Jeremiah 6.
2. Inhuman; barbarous; savage; causing pain, grief or distress; exerted in tormenting, vexing or afflicting.
Cursed be their wrath, for it was cruel. Genesis 44.
The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Proverbs 12.
Others had trials of cruel mockings. Hebrews 11.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering; "a barbarous crime"; "brutal beatings"; "cruel tortures"; "Stalin's roughshod treatment of the kulaks"; "a savage slap"; "vicious kicks" [syn: barbarous, brutal, cruel, fell, roughshod, savage, vicious]

Merriam Webster's

adjective (crueler or crueller; cruelest or cruellest) Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin crudelis, from crudus Date: 14th century 1. disposed to inflict pain or suffering ; devoid of humane feelings <a cruel tyrant> 2. a. causing or conducive to injury, grief, or pain <a cruel joke> b. unrelieved by leniency <cruel punishment> Synonyms: see fierce • cruelly adverb • cruelness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & v. --adj. (crueller, cruellest or crueler, cruelest) 1 indifferent to or gratified by another's suffering. 2 causing pain or suffering, esp. deliberately. --v.tr. (cruelled, cruelling) Austral. sl. thwart, spoil. Derivatives: cruelly adv. cruelness n. Etymology: ME f. OF f. L crudelis, rel. to crudus (as CRUDE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cruel Cru"el (kr[udd]"[e^]l), a. [F. cruel, fr. L. crudelis, fr. crudus. See Crude.] 1. Disposed to give pain to others; willing or pleased to hurt, torment, or afflict; destitute of sympathetic kindness and pity; savage; inhuman; hard-hearted; merciless. Behold a people cometh from the north country; . . . they are cruel and have no mercy. --Jer. vi. 22,23. 2. Causing, or fitted to cause, pain, grief, or misery. Cruel wars, wasting the earth. --Milton. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath for it was cruel. --Gen. xlix. 7. 3. Attended with cruetly; painful; harsh. You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength. --Shak.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cruel Cru"el (kr[udd]"[e^]l), n. See Crewel.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(crueller, cruellest) Note: in AM, use 'crueler', 'cruelest' 1. Someone who is cruel deliberately causes pain or distress to people or animals. Children can be so cruel... Don't you think it's cruel to cage a creature up? ? kind ADJ: oft it v-link ADJ to-inf • cruelly Douglas was often cruelly tormented by jealous siblings. ADV: ADV with v 2. A situation or event that is cruel is very harsh and causes people distress. ...struggling to survive in a cruel world with which they cannot cope... ADJ • cruelly His life has been cruelly shattered by an event not of his own making. ADV: usu ADV with v

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Unmerciful, inhuman, merciless, unfeeling, uncompassionate, fell, dire, ruthless, barbarous, pitiless, relentless, unrelenting, inexorable, savage, ferocious, brutal, sanguinary, truculent, blood-thirsty, hard-hearted. 2. Severe, hard, sharp, bitter.

Moby Thesaurus

Draconian, Tartarean, acute, afflictive, agonizing, animal, anthropophagous, atrocious, barbaric, barbarous, beastly, bestial, biting, bloodthirsty, bloody, bloody-minded, bowelless, brutal, brutalized, brute, brutish, callous, cannibalistic, cold-blooded, cramping, cruel-hearted, cruise, cutthroat, demoniac, demoniacal, devilish, diabolic, diabolical, distressing, dog-eat-dog, excruciating, fare, fell, feral, ferocious, fiendish, fiendlike, fierce, flinty, gnawing, go, gory, grave, grim, griping, hard, harrowing, harsh, heartless, heinous, hellish, hie, homicidal, hurtful, hurting, implacable, inclement, inexorable, infernal, inhuman, inhumane, journey, merciless, monstrous, murderous, outrageous, painful, paroxysmal, pass, piercing, pitiless, poignant, proceed, pungent, push on, racking, red-handed, relentless, remorseless, repair, ruthless, sadistic, sanguinary, sanguineous, satanic, savage, self-destructive, severe, sharkish, sharp, shooting, slaughterous, slavering, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, stabbing, stinging, subhuman, suicidal, tormenting, torturous, travel, truculent, unchristian, uncivilized, uncompassionate, uncompassioned, unfeeling, unforgiving, unhuman, unkind, unmerciful, unpitiful, unpitying, unremorseful, unsparing, unsympathetic, unsympathizing, unyielding, vicious, wend, without mercy, wolfish