cruel
Contents
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
Middle English, from Old French, from Latin crūdēlis (“hard, severe, cruel”), akin to crūdus (“raw, crude”); see crude.
PronunciationEdit
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kro͞oəl, IPA(key): /kɹuːəl/, IPA(key): /kɹuːl/
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Audio (US/UK) (file) - Rhymes: -ʊəl, -uːl
- Hyphenation: cru‧el
AdjectiveEdit
cruel (comparative crueler or crueller or more cruel, superlative cruelest or cruellest or most cruel)
- Not nice; mean; heartless.
- The supervisor was very cruel to Josh, as he would always give Josh the hardest, most degrading work he could find.
- (slang) Cool; awesome; neat.
Usage notesEdit
The word has metaphorical uses, for example "The cliffs remained cruel." (i.e. unclimbable when they desperately needed to be climbed) in The Lord of the Rings.
SynonymsEdit
AntonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
not nice; mean; heartless
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VerbEdit
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)
- 1937, Vance Palmer, Legend for Sanderson, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, p. 226, [1]
- What cruelled him was that Imperial Hotel contract.
- 2014, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 April, 2014, [2]
- He was on the fringes of Test selection last year before a shoulder injury cruelled his chances.
- 2015, The Age, 8 September, 2015, [3]
- A shortage of berth space for mega container ships will restrict capacity at Melbourne's port, cruelling Labor's attempts to get maximum value from its privatisation, a leading shipping expert has warned.
- 1937, Vance Palmer, Legend for Sanderson, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, p. 226, [1]
- (Australia) To violently provoke (a child) in the belief that this will make them more assertive.
- 2007, Stewart Motha, "Reconciliation as Domination" in Scott Veitch (ed.), Law and the Politics of Reconciliation, Routledge, 2016, p. 83, [4]
- Violence is apparently introduced early by the practice of "cruelling": children even in their first months are physically punished and then encouraged to seek retribution by punishing the punisher.
- 2009, Mark Colvin, ABC, "Peter Sutton discusses the politics of suffering in Aboriginal communities," 2 July, 2009, [5]
- […] I was referring to the area where you were talking about this practice of cruelling; the pinching of babies, sometimes so hard that their skin breaks and may go septic.
- 2007, Stewart Motha, "Reconciliation as Domination" in Scott Veitch (ed.), Law and the Politics of Reconciliation, Routledge, 2016, p. 83, [4]
Further readingEdit
- cruel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- cruel in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
AnagramsEdit
AsturianEdit
CatalanEdit
FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Latin crūdēlis. Compare also the Old French form crual, possibly from a Vulgar Latin form *crūdālis.
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
cruel (feminine singular cruelle, masculine plural cruels, feminine plural cruelles)
SynonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
Related termsEdit
Further readingEdit
- “cruel” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
AnagramsEdit
GalicianEdit
Middle EnglishEdit
PortugueseEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Old Portuguese cruel, from Latin crūdēlis.
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
cruel (plural cruéis, comparable)