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ADJECTIVE cruel COMPARATIVE crueller SUPERLATIVE cruellest
A2

cruel English

Meaning cruel meaning

What does cruel mean?
Definitions in simple English

cruel

Someone who is cruel is mean. They hurt other people and don't care, or they like hurting other people. The cruel guard pushed the prisoners so hard that some of them fell down. An action is cruel if only cruel people would do it. It's cruel to make children work 10 hours a day.

cruel

(= barbarous, brutal, roughshod, savage, vicious) (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

Synonyms cruel synonyms

What other words have the same or similar meaning as cruel?

Topics cruel topics

What do people use cruel to talk about?

Examples cruel examples

How do I use cruel in a sentence?

Simple sentences

How could you be so cruel?
Destiny is sometimes cruel.
It is cruel of him to ill-treat pets.
Eventually the cruel man was sentenced to jail.
I never thought he was capable of doing something so cruel.
It's a perfect example of cruel fate.
It is too cruel, I should say.
The people resisted their cruel ruler.
The poor people were at the mercy of the cruel dictator.
Once upon a time, there lived a cruel king.
Can a child do such a cruel thing?
The cops are searching for clues to the cruel murder.
It was cruel of him to beat his dog.
It is because he is cruel that I dislike him.
The long cruel winter at last came to an end, giving place to a gentle warm spring.
He isn't cruel to animals.
It was cruel of him to say such things to her.
It is cruel of him to say such things to her.
He could not bear to think of his dog being sold to that cruel man.
He was very hurt by her cruel words.
She appears to me to be cruel.
I think this one has to die for the other to live. It's a cruel world.
Murdering elephants, tigers and other endangered species is not just cruel; it's also illegal.
It was an extremely cruel war.

Movie subtitles

She made us better, no matter how cruel and controlling she was.
Indomitable and cruel, the Council of Elders reigned in Florence.
Oh, cruel fate.
Such cruel frosts. Really cruel frosts, just imagine.
Once there was a frost-cruel, such a cruel winter, a frost-cruel, that's Russian, leave me alone, they say it in Russia like that.
A cruel so cold, when we went out at night, we froze stiff.
Let's be cruel.
Some people think it was cruel of her to leave me, but what could she do?
Do you think it was cruel of her?
Hope you don't think I'm cruel, but, I'd like to tell you how How wonderful it's been meeting you, Mr. Ashenden.
The cruel and unjust.
He's waged a vast, cruel and ruthless war against us.
You are cruel.
Youre very cruel.
They're cruel, but you must.
What a cruel shame that any man is made to suffer so.
Cruel, evil, greedy, plundering peaceful cities. torturing their captives.
I have been pleading with the Governor on your behalf. asking him to be as merciful as you would be cruel.
How can you be so aggravated, you cruel thing?
I'm a nasty, cruel, selfish, bad mama.
Never be false. Never be cruel.
Sometimes, love is cruel, Miss Spenlow.
Ah Jip, oh Jippy, to think I could be cruel.
I know I've been cruel, but I'll make up for it.
Look, sir, it's the sand worked in cruel.
You see, I'm being cruel because I love him.
It is a cruel irony that you people without souls. should have hands.
You who have been cruel often, will be again.
But must you be cruel to me this one time?
What a cruel thing to say.
PHOEBE, HOW CAN YOU BE SO CRUEL?
MISS PHOEBE, WE'VE DONE YOU A CRUEL WRONG.
Now, sir, what you want to treat that cat so cruel for?
Tom, you mustn't be cruel to dumb beasts.
What's cruel to a dumb beast might be cruel to a human, too, aunt Polly.
I know it's extremely cruel to awaken anyone at such an hour.
It was cruel of us to let you suffer that way.
Of all the crimes this evil house has bred in the past.. None have been so cruel.. so nakedly shameless as yours..

News and current affairs

North Korea is perhaps the most noxious regime in the world today, and one can only hope that its cruel government collapses sometime soon.
To its credit, the British egg industry accepted the situation, and developed new and less cruel methods of keeping hens.
Reports of Vlad's cruel method - by no means unusual at the time - were already in circulation during his lifetime, and Corvinus probably gave his brutality a particularly bloodthirsty spin.
Literary works in which people who committed cruel, bloody acts were transformed into vampires became popular from 1820 onwards.
Saddam was venal and cruel, but his regime was predominantly secular.
But reality is more cruel.
Uruguay suffered cruel stagnation from the middle 1950s to the 1970s, brought about by rampant protectionism, irresponsible public finance, and tight exchange controls.
Nevertheless, July was a cruel month for Pakistan, and more seem certain to follow.
From Alexander the Great to Stalin the Cruel, variants of that strategy have been used to keep nations in thrall to the will of an emperor.
June will be a cruel month in Russia's courts.
Russia's attempts to subdue the Chechen insurrection are but another bloody chapter in a two hundred year colonial policy that began with Russia's subjugation of Caucasian mountain peoples in a cruel war that lasted for thirty years.
Young democracies can be cruel: their voters are often as unforgiving as political opponents.
These problems are due not to immigrants, but to our immigration controls, which are not only costly and cruel, but also ineffective and counterproductive.
The world could not have prevented Yugoslavia's spiral into civil war, but it might have made it less cruel by helping to negotiate terms of separation earlier.
This revolution will be tremendously generous to those countries that embrace it - and utterly indifferent, even cruel, to those that ignore it or let it pass by.
The debt is used to dominate people, and the impact is cruel and abusive.
Doing so is cruel and inhumane, and it violates the spirit of all refugee, human rights, and immigration laws.
We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely - or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.
The most likely explanation is that Netanyahu wants to reassure the Israeli public that no act of terrorism will be tolerated - even if that means a vindictive and cruel response.
There is cruel irony in the observation that in the country which Jinnah created in the name of Islam, that noble faith itself now constitutes the principal challenge to the very survival of the state.
Ours is a region of cruel contrasts.
Stalin's regime could be compared to a cruel, sadistic father who keeps his children in a state of fear and submission.
Ustadz So had taught them that Thai rule over this historically Malay region was illegitimate, that Thai officials were cruel and heartless, and that the time had come for the Muslim population to rise up and expel the Buddhist infidels.
It would be a cruel irony if, just as Africa begins to succeed, its prospects are cut short by a crisis beyond its control.

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