SAVAGERY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does savagery mean? 

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

1. the property of being untamed and ferocious

2. the trait of extreme cruelty

3. a brutal barbarous savage act

  Familiarity information: SAVAGERY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SAVAGERY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The property of being untamed and ferocious

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

savageness; savagery

Context example:

a craving for barbaric splendor, for savagery and color and the throb of drums

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

ferocity; fierceness; furiousness; fury; vehemence; violence; wildness (the property of being wild or turbulent)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of extreme cruelty

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

brutality; ferociousness; savagery; viciousness

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

cruelness; cruelty; harshness (the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A brutal barbarous savage act

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

barbarism; barbarity; brutality; savagery

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

atrocity; inhumanity (an act of atrocious cruelty)

Derivation:

savage (attack brutally and fiercely)

 Context examples 

It must have been latent savagery stirring in me, for the old words, so bound up with the roots of the race, to grip me and thrill me.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He alone endured and prospered, matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

A stranger could not hear this note, and to such a stranger the growling of White Fang was an exhibition of primordial savagery, nerve-racking and blood-curdling.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

But more than once, stealing into the room, when it was her watch off, she would catch the two men glaring ferociously at each other, wild animals the pair of them, in Hans's face the lust to kill, in Dennin's the fierceness and savagery of the cornered rat.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Coarseness and savagery are the inevitable results.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I noted them walking the deck together one morning, and I likened them to the extreme ends of the human ladder of evolution—the one the culmination of all savagery, the other the finished product of the finest civilization.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Smooth-shaven, every line was distinct, and it was cut as clear and sharp as a cameo; while sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair skin to a dark bronze which bespoke struggle and battle and added both to his savagery and his beauty.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)