cruel Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective satellite (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
    savage; barbarous; vicious; brutal; fell; roughshod.
    • a barbarous crime
    • brutal beatings
    • cruel tortures
    • Stalin's roughshod treatment of the kulaks
    • a savage slap
    • vicious kicks

WordNet

Cru"el noun
Definitions
  1. See Crewel.
Cru"el adjective
Etymology
F. cruel, fr. L. crudelis, fr. crudus. See Crude.
Definitions
  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 1913