[ UK /kɹˈuːəl/ ]
[ US /ˈkɹuəɫ, ˈkɹuɫ/ ]
ADJECTIVE
  1. (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
    a barbarous crime
    Stalin's roughshod treatment of the kulaks
    brutal beatings
    vicious kicks
    a savage slap
    cruel tortures
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How To Use cruel In A Sentence

  • The League Against Cruel Sports issued a statement Wednesday calling on Ottawa to "take steps to end the immense cruelty to animals in events such as calf-roping, which is practised at rodeos including the Calgary Stampede. CTV BritishColumbiaHome
  • For him, cruelty was a legitimate and necessary procedure, almost a profession of faith, and European artists showed him how to excruciate a tame local reality.
  • Its heroes were beastly revellers or cruel and ferocious plunderers; its heroines unsexed hoidens, playing the ugliest tricks with their lovers, and repaying slights with bloody revenge, -- very dangerous and unsatisfactory companions for any other than the fire - eating Vikings and redhanded, unwashed Berserkers. The Conflict with Slavery and Others, Complete, Volume VII, The Works of Whittier: the Conflict with Slavery, Politics and Reform, the Inner Life and Criticism
  • When stressed we are often the most cruel to those who we feel closest to. Times, Sunday Times
  • A man might be cruel but if you show your trust he will relent. THE TATTOOED GIRL
  • My hair was matted and wild -- my limbs soiled with salt ooze; while at sea, I had thrown off those of my garments that encumbered me, and the rain drenched the thin summer-clothing I had retained -- my feet were bare, and the stunted reeds and broken shells made them bleed -- the while, I hurried to and fro, now looking earnestly on some distant rock which, islanded in the sands, bore for a moment a deceptive appearance -- now with flashing eyes reproaching the murderous ocean for its unutterable cruelty. III.9
  • It is a cruel fashion irony, but a shapeless dress looks good only on a shapely body. Times, Sunday Times
  • The truth is cruel, but it can be loved and it makes free those who love it. George Santayana 
  • Why does it surprise anyone that a company involved in a cruel business would act in a cruel, cold-hearted manner?
  • But there is another reason why a war between the two countries is so much to be deprecated, which is, that is must ever be a cruel and an irritating war. Diary in America, Series One
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