cruel

English

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kro͞oəl, IPA(key): /kɹuːəl/, /kɹuːl/
  • Audio (US/UK)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ʊəl, -uːl
  • Hyphenation: cru‧el

Etymology 1

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French cruel, from Latin crūdēlis (“hard, severe, cruel”), akin to crūdus (“raw, crude”); see crude.

Adjective

cruel (comparative crueler or crueller or more cruel, superlative cruelest or cruellest or most cruel)

  1. 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.
  2. (slang) Cool; awesome; neat.
Usage notes

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.

Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Adverb

cruel (not comparable)

  1. (nonstandard) To a great degree; terribly.
    • 2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 219:
      'I've never got arthritis, though my old dad had it something cruel.'

Verb

cruel (third-person singular simple present cruels, present participle cruelling, simple past and past participle cruelled)

  1. (chiefly Australia, New Zealand) To spoil or ruin (one's chance of success)
    • 1937, Vance Palmer, Legend for Sanderson, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, p. 226,
      What cruelled him was that Imperial Hotel contract.
    • 2014, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 April, 2014,
      He was on the fringes of Test selection last year before a shoulder injury cruelled his chances.
    • 2015, The Age, 8 September, 2015,
      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.
  2. (Australia, transitive, intransitive) 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,
      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,
      […] 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.

Etymology 2

Noun

cruel (countable and uncountable, plural cruels)

  1. Alternative form of crewel

Further reading

  • cruel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
  • cruel in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

Asturian

Etymology

From Latin crūdēlis.

Adjective

cruel (epicene, plural crueles)

  1. cruel

Catalan

Etymology

From Old Occitan [Term?], from Latin crūdēlis.

Adjective

cruel (masculine and feminine plural cruels)

  1. cruel

Derived terms

Further reading

French

Etymology

From Old French cruel, from Latin crūdēlis; either remade based on the Latin or evolved from the Old French form crual, possibly from a Vulgar Latin form *crūdālis.

Pronunciation

Adjective

cruel (feminine singular cruelle, masculine plural cruels, feminine plural cruelles)

  1. cruel
  2. hard, painful

Synonyms

Derived terms

Further reading

Anagrams

Galician

Etymology

From Old Portuguese [Term?], from Latin crūdēlis.

Adjective

cruel m, f (plural crueis)

  1. cruel

Derived terms

Middle English

Adjective

cruel

  1. cruel

Portuguese

Etymology

From Old Portuguese cruel, from Latin crūdēlis.

Pronunciation

  • (Portugal) IPA(key): /kɾu.ˈɛɫ/
  • Rhymes: -ɛw

Adjective

cruel (plural cruéis, comparable)

  1. cruel

Derived terms

Spanish

Etymology

From Old Spanish, from Latin crūdēlis.

Adjective

cruel (plural crueles)

  1. cruel

Derived terms

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