crueladjective
uk/ˈkruː.əl/us/ˈkruː.əl/crueller, cruellest or crueler, cruelestB1 extremely unkind and unpleasant and causing pain to people or animals intentionally:
Don't tease him about his weight - it's cruel.
Children can be very cruel to each other.
causing suffering:
His death was a cruel blow.
More examples
- It's so cruel to keep a pony chained up like that all the time.
- Can't you see that you're really frightening your little brother? Don't be so cruel.
- We appear to have been the victims of a cruel practical joke.
- Fate played a cruel trick on him when he was badly injured in his first international game.
- Keeping animals in these conditions is unbelievably cruel - the farmer ought to be prosecuted.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Unkind, cruel & unfeeling
- acerbic
- acidly
- backbite
- backbiting
- backhanded
- barbaric
- bilious
- cutthroat
- fiendish
- hard-hearted
- have a heart of stone idiom
- have a sharp tongue idiom
- insensible
- malign
- remorseless
- ruthless
- sadism
- sadist
- savagery
- waspish
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cruelly
adverb uk/ˈkruː.ə.li/us/ˈkruː.ə.li/
B2 in a cruel way
Idiom(s)
be cruel to be kind