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:
He told the BBC it was "hard to hear" how his daughter was treated, saying staff had been "absolutely cruel" to her.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
Often, it’s trauma that changes us, that pushes us past the confines of what we know to be righteous and toward something cruel and unusual — a picture of ourselves that looks unfamiliar.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 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
Outflanked by cruel and fickle gods at every turn, legendary Greek hero Odysseus outsmarted a one-eyed giant, suffered through the bewitching Sirens’ song and braved the Underworld’s dead denizens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
Someone in this room was playing a cruel trick.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
If every author is a parent to their characters, then Austen, Mary’s true mother, is a good deal crueler than Mrs. Bennet.
From Salon ● May 20, 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
He’s never done anything crueler than return a library book past due.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2025
“I wasn’t mean, just...honest. Wouldn’t it be crueler to make him think there was some hope that I’d come around and just embrace all of this?”
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
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
These are the cruelest days of harvest, when the sun turns fields into slow ovens and the heat climbs before breakfast, holding on until the stars are out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2025
Qotho was ever the cruelest of the bloodriders.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
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.
