Word.ws English Dictionary

cruelest

cruelest is the superlative form of cruel.

Meaning of cruel

Adjective

cruel (comparative crueler or crueller or more cruel, superlative cruelest or cruellest or most cruel)

  1. Intentionally causing or reveling in pain and suffering; merciless, heartless.
    • The supervisor was very cruel to Josh, as he would always give Josh the hardest, most degrading work he could find.
    Antonyms:
    merciful
  2. Harsh; severe.
    • We're certainly having quite a cruel winter this year.
  3. (slang) Cool; awesome; neat.

See all 6 meanings of cruel

Questions about cruelest

What is cruelest the superlative form of?
Cruelest is the superlative form of cruel.

Words near cruelest in the dictionary

  1. cruel mistresses
  2. cruel-hearted
  3. cruel-heartedly
  4. cruel-heartedness
  5. crueler
  6. cruelest
  7. cruelest-hearted
  8. cruelhearted
  9. cruelheartedness
  10. cruelize
  11. cruelized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cruelest (page history and authors); cruel (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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