cruel
Intentionally causing or reveling in pain and suffering; merciless, heartless.
Example
“The supervisor was very cruel to Josh, as he would always give Josh the hardest, most degrading work he could find.”
Other meanings
Cool; awesome; neat.
Synonyms
- brutal
- fell
- vicious
Word history
From Latin "crūdēlis" (hard, severe, cruel).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “cruel” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.