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Etymology
Origin of brutality
Explanation
Brutality is extreme cruelty, deliberate violent meanness. Avoid being the giver or receiver of brutality if you wish to remain a happy human. Brutality comes from brutal (savage, fierce), plus -ity which makes it a noun. It’s the state of being a brute. Many criminals — especially murderers, rapists, and abusers — are guilty of brutality. Police brutality is what happens when the cops use extreme unnecessary force. Brutality is a strong word — just slapping someone isn't quite brutality. Brutality is more like beating a person with a tire iron. Brutality is also the name of a death metal band from Florida.
Vocabulary lists containing brutality
Bronx Masquerade
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All American Boys
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The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Appeared in the May 5, 2026, print edition as 'A Prelude To Brutality'.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 4, 2026
He was part of a remarkable program turnaround under Harbaugh and then under his leadership Stanford became the premier program in the Pac-12 with a physical style dubbed Intellectual Brutality.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 27, 2022
“If that’s what it takes to get police to buy in, that ‘We’ll save each other’s necks,’ fine,” said Michelle Gross, who helps lead the Minneapolis group Communities United Against Police Brutality.
From New York Times • Feb. 27, 2022
Mass Action Against Police Brutality, a local advocacy group, said it’s organizing a 1 p.m. gathering in Peters Park in the city’s South End neighborhood.
From Washington Times • Mar. 6, 2021
They act the Counterparts of a Confucius or a Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the World to deprave human Nature, and sink it into the Condition of Brutality.
From The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Addison, Joseph
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
