barbarous, brutal, cruel, fell, roughshod, savage, vicious
(adjective) (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering; “a barbarous crime”; “brutal beatings”; “cruel tortures”; “Stalin’s roughshod treatment of the kulaks”; “a savage slap”; “vicious kicks”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
cruel (comparative crueler or crueller or more cruel, superlative most cruel)
Intentionally causing or reveling in pain and suffering; merciless, heartless.
Synonym: sadistic
Antonym: merciful
Harsh; severe.
• Ranulph Fiennes, Cold: Extreme Adventures at the Lowest Temperatures on Earth
• C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia
Synonym: brutal
(slang) Cool; awesome; neat.
cruel (not comparable)
(nonstandard) To a great degree; terribly.
cruel (third-person singular simple present cruels, present participle cruelling, simple past and past participle cruelled)
(chiefly, Australia, New Zealand) To spoil or ruin (one's chance of success)
(Australia, ambitransitive) To violently provoke (a child) in the belief that this will make them more assertive.
cruel (countable and uncountable, plural cruels)
Alternative form of crewel
• lucre, ulcer
Source: Wiktionary
Cru"el (kr"l), n.
Definition: See Crewel.
Cru"el (kr*"l), a. Etym: [F. cruel, fr. L. crudelis, fr. crudus. See Crude.]
1. Disposed to give pain to others; willing or pleased to hurt, torment, or afflict; destitute of sympathetic kindness and pity; savage; inhuman; hard-hearted; merciless. Behold a people cometh from the north country; . . . they are cruel and have no mercy. Jer. vi. 22,23.
2. Causing, or fitted to cause, pain, grief, or misery. Cruel wars, wasting the earth. Milton. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath for it was cruel. Gen. xlix. 7.
3. Attended with cruetly; painful; harsh. You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength. Shak.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
1 May 2025
(adjective) of or relating to an economy, the system of production and management of material wealth; “economic growth”; “aspects of social, political, and economical life”
The Boston Tea Party helped popularize coffee in America. The hefty tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773 resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, it became patriotic to sip java instead of tea. The Civil War made the drink more pervasive. Coffee helped energize tired troops, and drinking it became an expression of freedom.
