CRUELTY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does cruelty mean? 

• CRUELTY (noun)
  The noun CRUELTY has 3 senses:

1. a cruel act; a deliberate infliction of pain and suffering

2. feelings of extreme heartlessness

3. the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance

  Familiarity information: CRUELTY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CRUELTY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A cruel act; a deliberate infliction of pain and suffering

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

cruelty; inhuman treatment

Hypernyms ("cruelty" is a kind of...):

abuse; ill-treatment; ill-usage; maltreatment (cruel or inhumane treatment)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cruelty"):

impalement (the act of piercing with a sharpened stake as a form of punishment or torture)

atrocity; inhumanity (an act of atrocious cruelty)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Feelings of extreme heartlessness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

cruelty; mercilessness; pitilessness; ruthlessness

Hypernyms ("cruelty" is a kind of...):

coldheartedness; hardheartedness; heartlessness (an absence of concern for the welfare of others)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

cruelness; cruelty; harshness

Hypernyms ("cruelty" is a kind of...):

malevolence; malevolency; malice (the quality of threatening evil)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cruelty"):

brutality; ferociousness; savagery; viciousness (the trait of extreme cruelty)

murderousness (cruelty evidence by a capability to commit murder)

 Context examples 

In a school carried on by sheer cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely to be much learnt.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And White Fang licked his hurts and meditated upon this, his first taste of pack-cruelty and his introduction to the pack.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I've seen unfortunate little creatures left to servants, or backward ones pushed forward, when it's real cruelty.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

All the feuds of countless generations, all the hatreds and cruelties of their narrow history, all the memories of ill-usage and persecution were to be purged that day.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

By no possible process of cruelty, starvation, or disease could this worn-out wreck be the still beautiful Lady Frances.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)