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:
“It is cruel and unacceptable, and it is past time for ICE to start following the law.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 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
First elected as an MP in 1987, she faced cruel comments about her appearance, with one newspaper calling her "Doris Karloff" - a reference to an old Hollywood horror star.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 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
In the back of her mind, Sigurd roared with cruel laughter.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
“But I don’t recall crueler words ever said about me.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 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
"Yet these are hard times, my lord. His road is no crueler than yours or your lady's."
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
After his electoral defeat in 1912, Candice Millard writes in “The River of Doubt,” Roosevelt “sought to purge his disappointment by throwing himself headlong against the cruelest trials that nature could offer him.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 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
If April is the cruelest month, per T.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2026
This is what Margaret asked: “Have you ever heard the saying ‘The cruelest lies are often told in silence’?”
From "Silent To The Bone" by E.L. Konigsburg
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.
