cruel

cruel
    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}]
    

Cruel \Cru"el\ (kr[udd]"[e^]l), n.
   See {Crewel}.
   [1913 Webster]
    

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.
      [1913 Webster]

            Behold a people cometh from the north country; . . .
            they are cruel and have no mercy.     --Jer. vi.
                                                  22,23.
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   2. Causing, or fitted to cause, pain, grief, or misery.
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            Cruel wars, wasting the earth.        --Milton.
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            Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their
            wrath for it was cruel.               --Gen. xlix.
                                                  7.
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   3. Attended with cruetly; painful; harsh.
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            You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength.
                                                  --Shak.
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129 Moby Thesaurus words for "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