| / English Dictionary |
CRUEL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
Example:
vicious kicks
Synonyms:
barbarous; brutal; cruel; fell; roughshod; savage; vicious
Classified under:
Similar:
inhumane (lacking and reflecting lack of pity or compassion)
Derivation:
cruelness (the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance)
Context examples:
She supposed he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, a terrible delay to her.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
He must have been dreadfully cruel to her!
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Gennaro saw our enemy’s cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Your indifference, however, towards that unfortunate girl—I must say it, unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well be—your indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
“You are very cruel,” said her sister, “you will not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every moment.”
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I have but now bid farewell to one who hath lost all in this cruel war.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It’s fine liquor, sir, but it gets into my cut lips most cruel.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I have a great idea that you do not design to be cruel, when the right moment occurs.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
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