Word.ws English Dictionary

been cruel to be kind

been cruel to be kind is the past participle of be cruel to be kind.

Meaning of be cruel to be kind

Verb

be cruel to be kind (third-person singular simple present is cruel to be kind, present participle being cruel to be kind, simple past was cruel to be kind, past participle been cruel to be kind)

  1. (idiomatic) To act cruelly in order to achieve a positive outcome in the future.
    • I muſt be cruell only to be kinde, / This bad beginnes, and worſe remaines behind.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...

Questions about been cruel to be kind

What is been cruel to be kind the past participle of?
Been cruel to be kind is the past participle of be cruel to be kind.

Words near been cruel to be kind in the dictionary

  1. been along
  2. been at the plague
  3. been awake
  4. been bored
  5. been born
  6. been cruel to be kind
  7. been darkmans
  8. been done with
  9. been down with
  10. been gathered to one's fathers
  11. been good for

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: been cruel to be kind (page history and authors); be cruel to be kind (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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