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BRUTAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Disagreeably direct and precise
Example:
he spoke with brutal honesty
Classified under:
Similar:
direct (straightforward in means or manner or behavior or language or action)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
Example:
vicious kicks
Synonyms:
barbarous; brutal; cruel; fell; roughshod; savage; vicious
Classified under:
Similar:
inhumane (lacking and reflecting lack of pity or compassion)
Derivation:
brutality (the trait of extreme cruelty)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Resembling a beast; showing lack of human sensibility
Example:
bestial treatment of prisoners
Synonyms:
beastly; bestial; brutal; brute; brutish
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
inhumane (lacking and reflecting lack of pity or compassion)
Derivation:
brutalize (become brutal or insensitive and unfeeling)
brutalize (make brutal, unfeeling, or inhuman)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Punishingly harsh
Example:
a brutal winter
Synonyms:
brutal; unrelenting
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
intense (possessing or displaying a distinctive feature to a heightened degree)
Context examples:
“I’ve got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fiftypound sacks of flour on it,” Matthewson went on with brutal directness; “so don’t let that hinder you.”
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
Its interactions with humans to obtain food are mutually beneficial, but to obtain care for its young it is a brutal exploiter of other birds.
(How humans and wild Honeyguide birds call each other to help, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
By God's tooth! he continued, with a brutal laugh, you ask me if I am a man of quarterings, and it is even so, for I am officer to the verderer's court at Lyndhurst.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He agreed; and I went on by assuring him, that the ship was made by creatures like myself; who, in all the countries I had travelled, as well as in my own, were the only governing rational animals; and that upon my arrival hither, I was as much astonished to see the Houyhnhnms act like rational beings, as he, or his friends, could be, in finding some marks of reason in a creature he was pleased to call a Yahoo; to which I owned my resemblance in every part, but could not account for their degenerate and brutal nature.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The poor man was very uncomfortable, for the children had bereft him of his wife, home was merely a nursery and the perpetual 'hushing' made him feel like a brutal intruder whenever he entered the sacred precincts of Babyland.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
“I cannot bear to think of it being done. It is so directly brutal, you know; so different from shooting them.”
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
He is rough, brutal, strong—too strong.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Brutal it was, no doubt, and its brutality is the end of it; but it is not so brutal as war, which will survive it.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Williamson, the ex-clergyman, bowed to us with mock politeness, and the bully, Woodley, advanced with a shout of brutal and exultant laughter.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Again and again, as he looked at each brutal performance, the lesson was driven home to Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed, though not necessarily conciliated.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
