brutish
Americanadjective
-
of, relating to, or resembling a brute or brutes; animal
-
coarse; cruel; stupid
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of brutish
Explanation
Use the adjective brutish to describe someone who is so cruel or violent that he seems more like a wild animal than a human. A brutish king will be deeply disliked by his subjects. Someone who's brutish is uncivilized in some way. A brutish person might, for example, knock a table over when he's angry or slap another person without a thought. Brutish leaders make decisions that endanger or even kill people. The word brutish means "like a brute," and a brute is an extremely violent or wild person or animal. In the 1500's, brutish simply meant "like an animal," and the Latin root word, brutus, means "heavy, dull, or stupid."
Vocabulary lists containing brutish
Surviving Hitler
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Excerpt from "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar"
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Becoming Kareem
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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.
You’ll certainly learn much, or be reminded of much, reading “Nasty, Brutish, and Short”: the famous “Trolley Problem” introduced by Philippa Foot, the “hard problem of consciousness” outlined by David Chalmers.
From New York Times • May 4, 2022
Indeed, “why” tolls like a bell throughout “Nasty, Brutish, and Short.”
From New York Times • May 4, 2022
For a more recent discussion of this issue, see an article posted on this site last week, “Nasty, Brutish and Short: Are Humans DNA-Wired to Kill?”
From Scientific American • Jul. 29, 2017
Man's nature is threefold: the Divine, which neither deceives nor is deceived; the Human, which deceives, but is not deceived; the Brutish, which does not deceive, but is deceived.
From Jerome Cardan A Biographical Study by Waters, W. G. (William George)
Brutish is the clear blue eye, with the burning excited brain revealing itself in flashes such as one might see in the eye of a rhinoceros on the attack.
From A Woman's Experience in the Great War by Mack, Louise
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.
