cruel
Americanadjective
-
crueler,
comparative
-
cruelest
superlative
-
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:
But what Anthropic would consider "abusive or cruel behaviour" towards its models remains unclear.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
“Outside of these walls is a world that can be cruel, uncertain, and dangerous for people like us but inside these walls at this rave, we are truly free.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
The San Francisco-based AI lab updated its usage policy to include "a prohibition on sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models."
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
In other words, those things have been working very hard to make it OK to not think about this in terms of cruel and unusual punishment.
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2026
How cruel to have to leave all these behind!
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
But they’re also crueler, and you can understand why she’ll think and write about anything but.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 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
Seven years later, the group has returned with sharper tools and a crueler edge, armed with a transformed legal and cultural landscape.
From Slate ● Jul. 2, 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
He is crueler than von Linden, I think, enjoys it more, but has not v.L.’s genius or commitment.
From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein
I just think one of the cruelest things you can do is to coddle your child in a false reality versus helping them figure out the real reality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
But at the same time, even under the cruelest dictatorships, it has still managed to produce fine literature.
From Barron's ● May 21, 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
Yet none found the back of the net, leaving the game to be decided on penalties, the cruelest, meanest, most unfair — and most exciting — way to determine a winner.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025
Sometimes, when I’m punished like this, Amá doesn’t even let me go to the library, which I think is the cruelest kind of torture.
From "I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter" by Erika L. Sánchez
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
