Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In a cruel manner; with cruelty; inhumanly; mercilessly.
- Painfully; with severe pain or torture.
- Mischievously; extremely; greatly.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb In a cruel manner.
- adverb colloq. Extremely; very.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb In a
cruel manner.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adverb excessively
- adverb with cruelty
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cruelly.
Examples
-
George W. Bush focused on winning the second term cruelly denied to his father, and Mitt Romney still hopes to claim the Republican nomination that his father lost to Richard Nixon in 1968.
Presidential Fathers and Sons Michael Medved 2012
-
All had been slain cruelly, their eyes cut from their heads, their backs flayed with heavy whips until the ribs showed.
Archive 2009-12-01 Reis O'Brien 2009
-
All had been slain cruelly, their eyes cut from their heads, their backs flayed with heavy whips until the ribs showed.
Conan Fan Fiction! Cromsblood 2009
-
When Tobin cruelly breaks her heart that very same night, the lonely girl peeking out from Sofia's shell retreats, and she becomes flippant and cocky once more.
Archive 2008-09-01 Nalini Singh 2008
-
When Tobin cruelly breaks her heart that very same night, the lonely girl peeking out from Sofia's shell retreats, and she becomes flippant and cocky once more.
Reader Interviews: Daphne Dalle on "Wicked" by Jill Barnett Nalini Singh 2008
-
It's a huge disappointment that this isn't about lady rappers, as the name cruelly teases, but flight attendants, and their, yawn, glamorous lifestyles.
-
Your death was determined to be “sudden unexplained death in epilepsy,” a term so cruelly nonsensical it might as well have been “fickle finger of fate.”
Knowing Jesse Marianne Leone 2010
-
Your death was determined to be “sudden unexplained death in epilepsy,” a term so cruelly nonsensical it might as well have been “fickle finger of fate.”
Knowing Jesse Marianne Leone 2010
-
The African Union rallied to an African leader, saying it would not intervene in a Zimbabwean campaign of evictions and arrests that has been described as cruelly anti-poor because Robert Mugabe might be trying to help his people in the long term.
-
We have to be very cruel, we have to look at the situation very cruelly, meaning that if the United States helps us now and thinks of Korea as a partner, in the long run Korea will recover and that will be good for the United States as well.
Remarks By The President In Korean Discussion ITY National Archives 1998
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.