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Cruel - Dictionary Definition and Overview |
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Cruel : adj
1: lacking or showing kindness or compassion or mercy [syn: unkind]
2: (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, fell, roughshod, savage, vicious]
3: (of weapons or instruments) causing suffering and pain;
"brutal instruments of torture"; "cruel weapons of war"
[syn: brutal]
4: used of circumstances (especially weather) that cause
suffering; "brutal weather"; "northern winters can be
cruel"; "a cruel world"; "a harsh climate"; "a rigorous
climate"; "unkind winters" [syn: brutal, harsh, rigorous,
unkind]
Based on WordNet 2.0
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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.
Based on Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
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Cruel : \Cru"el\ (kr[udd]"[e^]l), n.
See Crewel.
Based on Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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