Cruel

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: cru=el

CIDE DICTIONARY

Cruel, n. 

 See Crewel.  [1913 Webster]

Cruel, a. [F. cruel, fr. L. crudelis, fr. crudus. See Crude.].

•  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.  [1913 Webster]

  "Behold a people cometh from the north country; . . . they are cruel and have no mercy."  [1913 Webster]
•  Causing, or fitted to cause, pain, grief, or misery.  [1913 Webster]

  "Cruel wars, wasting the earth."  [1913 Webster]

  "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath for it was cruel."  [1913 Webster]
•  Attended with cruetly; painful; harsh.  [1913 Webster]

  "You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Cruel, 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.

Derivative

cruelly adv. cruelness n.

Etymology

ME f. OF f. L crudelis, rel. to crudus (as CRUDE)

THESAURUS

Cruel

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

ROGET THESAURUS

Cruel

Severity

N severity, strictness, harshness, rigor, stringency, austerity, inclemency, arrogance, precisianism, arbitrary power, absolutism, despotism, dictatorship, autocracy, tyranny, domineering, oppression, assumption, usurpation, inquisition, reign of terror, martial law, iron heel, iron rule, iron hand, iron sway, tight grasp, brute force, brute strength, coercion, strong hand, tight hand, hard lines, hard measure, tender mercies, sharp practice, pipe-clay, officialism, tyrant, disciplinarian, precisian, martinet, stickler, bashaw, despot, hard master, Draco, oppressor, inquisitor, extortioner, harpy, vulture, accipitres, birds of prey, raptorials, raptors, severe, strict, hard, harsh, dour, rigid, stiff, stern, rigorous, uncompromising, exacting, exigent, exigeant, inexorable, inflexible, obdurate, austere, hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard-shell, relentless, Spartan, Draconian, stringent, strait-laced, searching, unsparing, iron-handed, peremptory, absolute, positive, arbitrary, imperative, coercive, tyrannical, extortionate, grinding, withering, oppressive, inquisitorial, inclement, cruel, haughty, arrogant, precisian, severely, with a high hand, with a strong hand, with a tight hand, with a heavy hand, at the point of the sword, at the point of the bayonet, Delirant reges plectuntur Achivi, manu forti, ogni debole ha sempre il suo tiranno.

Painfulness

N painfulness, trouble, care, trial, affliction, infliction, blow, stroke, burden, load, curse, bitter pill, bitter draught, waters of bitterness, annoyance, grievance, nuisance, vexation, mortification, sickener, bore, bother, pother, hot water, sea of troubles, hornet's nest, plague, pest, cancer, ulcer, sting, thorn, canker, scorpion, dagger, scourge, carking care, canker worm of care, mishap, misfortune, desagrement, esclandre, rub, source of irritation, source of annoyance, wound, open sore, sore subject, skeleton in the closet, thorn in the flesh, thorn in one's side, where the shoe pinches, gall and wormwood, sorry sight, heavy news, provocation, affront, head and front of one's offending, infestation, molestation, malignity, causing pain, hurting, hurtful, painful, dolorific, dolorous, unpleasant, unpleasing, displeasing, disagreeable, unpalatable, bitter, distasteful, uninviting, unwelcome, undesirable, undesired, obnoxious, unacceptable, unpopular, thankless, unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable, distressing, afflicting, afflictive, joyless, cheerless, comfortless, dismal, disheartening, depressing, depressive, dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous, woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable, sad, affecting, touching, pathetic, irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling, unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious, troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome, plaguing, plaguy, awkward, importunate, teasing, pestering, bothering, harassing, worrying, tormenting, carking, intolerable, insufferable, insupportable, unbearable, unendurable, past bearing, not to be borne, not to be endured, more than flesh and blood can bear, enough to drive one mad, enough to provoke a saint, enough to make a parson swear, enough to gag a maggot, shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing, dreadful, fearful, frightful, thrilling, tremendous, dire, heart-breaking, heart-rending, heart-wounding, heart-corroding, heart-sickening, harrowing, rending, odious, hateful, execrable, repulsive, repellent, abhorrent, horrid, horrible, horrific, horrifying, offensive, nauseous, nauseating, disgusting, sickening, revolting, nasty, loathsome, loathful, fulsome, vile, hideous, sharp, acute, sore, severe, grave, hard, harsh, cruel, biting, caustic, cutting, corroding, consuming, racking, excruciating, searching, grinding, grating, agonizing, envenomed, catheretic, pyrotic, ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, tragical, desolating, withering, burdensome, onerous, oppressive, cumbrous, cumbersome, painfully, with pain, deuced, Int, hinc illae lachrymae!, surgit amari aliquid, the place being too hot to hold one, the iron entering into the soul, he jests at scars that never felt a wound, I must be cruel only to be kind, what deep wounds ever closed without a scar?.

Malevolence

N malevolence, bad intent, bad intention, unkindness, diskindness, ill nature, ill will, ill blood, bad blood, enmity, hate, malignity, malice, malice prepense, maliciousness, spite, despite, resentment, uncharitableness, incompassionateness, gall, venom, rancor, rankling, virulence, mordacity, acerbity churlishness, hardness of heart, heart of stone, obduracy, cruelty, cruelness, brutality, savagery, ferity, ferocity, barbarity, inhumanity, immanity, truculence, ruffianism, evil eye, cloven foot, torture, vivisection, ill turn, bad turn, affront, outrage, atrocity, ill usage, intolerance, persecution, tender mercies, unkindest cut of all, malevolent, unbenevolent, unbenign, ill-disposed, ill-intentioned, ill-natured, ill-conditioned, ill-contrived, evil-minded, evil- disposed, black-browed, malicious, malign, malignant, rancorous, despiteful, spiteful, mordacious, caustic, bitter, envenomed, acrimonious, virulent, unamiable, uncharitable, maleficent, venomous, grinding, galling, harsh, disobliging, unkind, unfriendly, ungracious, inofficious, invidious, uncandid, churlish, surly, sullen, cold, cold-blooded, cold-hearted, black-hearted, hard-hearted, flint-hearted, marble-hearted, stony-hearted, hard of heart, unnatural, ruthless, relentless, cruel, brutal, brutish, savage, savage as a bear, savage as a tiger, ferine, ferocious, inhuman, barbarous, barbaric, semibarbaric, fell, untamed, tameless, truculent, incendiary, bloodthirsty, atrocious, bloodyminded, fiendish, fiendlike, demoniacal, diabolic, diabolical, devilish, infernal, hellish, Satanic, Tartaran, malevolently, with bad intent, cruel as death, hard unkindness' alter'd eye, homo homini lupus, mala mens, malus animus, rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind, sharp-tooth'd unkindness.