savagery
Americannoun
-
an uncivilized or barbaric state or condition; barbarity.
-
savage action, nature, disposition, or behavior.
noun
-
an uncivilized condition
-
a savage act or nature
-
savages collectively
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of savagery
Explanation
Savagery is fierce or brutal violence. The savagery of boxing is just too much for me — I prefer sports like rowing and badminton. When you think of savagery, extreme physical violence probably comes to mind. The savagery of war, brutal crackdowns by totalitarian governments, and vicious attacks are all good examples. There's also a figurative kind of savagery: "The restaurant critic's savagery felt like a personal attack on the chef." Savagery has a Latin source meaning "wild" or "of the woods," from a root that means "forest."
Vocabulary lists containing savagery
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:
In “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy depicts a postapocalyptic world with the savagery and tangled lyricism he earlier brought to blood-dimmed novels about the Western borderlands.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
Few if any of even Kim Jong-un’s looniest tirades match these posts for their wild-eyed savagery.
From Slate ● Apr. 6, 2026
His shrieking reactions to his wife’s savagery throw into relief his good nature and her perversity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2026
"We're not going to allow this kind of savagery to destroy our society anymore," Trump said at a memorandum-signing in the Oval Office.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2025
The gull’s savagery and suspicion had been due partly to pain and partly to the unnerving knowledge that it had no companions and could not fly.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
“Their professional dominance came in part from their command of the intimate daily savageries of the slave trade,” Rothman writes.
From Slate ● Apr. 19, 2021
Far beyond Syria, as well, many millions of people bear indelible memories of the conflict’s multifarious savageries, thanks to the numbing barrage of videos that have been posted on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 3, 2017
She even endured the Dantean savageries of Filene's basement on a Saturday morning.
From Time Magazine Archive
A good thing too, says Goffman, for "without such mercies, unsatisfactory persons would bleed to death from the conversational savageries performed on them."
From Time Magazine Archive
Why do not such savageries occur in Switzerland?
From Some Answered Questions by `Abdu'l-Bahá
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.
