cruel
Americanadjective
-
willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others.
- Synonyms:
- relentless, merciless, ferocious, bloodthirsty
- Antonyms:
- kind
-
enjoying the pain or distress of others.
the cruel spectators of the gladiatorial contests.
- Antonyms:
- compassionate, sympathetic
-
causing or marked by great pain or distress.
a cruel remark;
a cruel affliction.
-
rigid; stern; strict; unrelentingly severe.
adjective
-
causing or inflicting pain without pity
a cruel teacher
-
causing pain or suffering
a cruel accident
Synonym Usage
Cruel, pitiless, ruthless, brutal, savage imply readiness to cause pain to others. Cruel implies willingness to cause pain, and indifference to suffering: a cruel stepfather. Pitiless adds the idea of refusal to show compassion: pitiless to captives. Ruthless implies cruelty and unscrupulousness, letting nothing stand in one's way: ruthless greed. Brutal implies cruelty that takes the form of physical violence: a brutal master. Savage suggests fierceness and brutality: savage battles.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of cruel
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English, from Anglo-French, Old French, from Latin crūdēlis, equivalent to crūd(us) ( see crude) + -ēlis, adjective suffix
Explanation
Someone or something that inflicts pain or causes suffering can be described as cruel. It would be cruel of you to offer chocolate to someone on a diet. High school can be cruel sometimes: cruel teachers, who seem to organize to all pile on the papers and tests for the same day; cruel students, who are mean to each other; and even cruel cafeteria workers, who create disgusting concoctions out of mystery meat. Through its Latin ancestors — crudelis "rude and unfeeling" and crudus "raw or rude" — cruel is related to the English word crude, meaning rude or not fully formed.
Vocabulary lists containing cruel
Schooled
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Messenger
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"Seeking Freedom"
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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.
See Examples For:
“During my year long journey, I have discovered how cruel, evil and greedy a human can be,” she wrote, seemingly alluding to the legal battle but not naming her daughter-in-law.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
It also makes much clearer how hard the homesteaders had to work, how desperate they had to be to go west at all, and how cruel and harsh the conditions were.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
It was not to be though, with a cruel deflection off Diney Borges from Cristian Romero's header seeing Argentina through.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
In Ethiopia, it is illegal to kill animals in public spaces, or cause them to suffer in cruel and abnormal ways.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
With the destructive power of the weapons the Soviets were now building, the whole idea of planning for life after nuclear war seemed like a cruel joke.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
Trump’s treatment of Cornyn was crueler than that of Cassidy.
From Slate ● May 30, 2026
I recognize, of course, that life isn’t fair and that many families are grappling with circumstances far crueler than ours.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 22, 2025
He’s never done anything crueler than return a library book past due.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2025
For a very long time, the god of pleasure who had so appealed to me as a young child was replaced with a crueler god, The Pursuit of Thinness.
From Salon ● Dec. 15, 2022
The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
But at the same time, even under the cruelest dictatorships, it has still managed to produce fine literature.
From Barron's ● May 21, 2026
Eliot famously wrote that “April is the cruelest month.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 10, 2026
Some Wall Street analysts are insisting that April — contrary to its label as the cruelest month — is actually one of the better months for the U.S. stock market.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 1, 2026
Here, “m.A.A.d. city,” one of his hardest and cruelest street cuts, became a meta-R&B number that made the song even more eerie.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2025
But the cruelest discovery was Kaz’s gift for cards.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
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.
