Word.ws English Dictionary

cruelty-free

cruelty-free adjective: of cosmetics and similar products: made without harming animals.

Adjective

cruelty-free (not comparable)

  1. Of cosmetics and similar products: made without harming animals.
    • It can be particularly hard to tell what is and isn't cruelty-free, as the term isn't regulated; any brand can claim to be so. The only way a company can be totally cruelty-free is when no animal testing has happened at any point during production.2020, Madeleine Olivia, Minimal: How to simplify your life and live sustainably, Random House, →ISBN

Origin of cruelty-free

From cruelty + -free.

Questions about cruelty-free

What does cruelty-free mean?
Cruelty-free means of cosmetics and similar products: made without harming animals.
What part of speech is cruelty-free?
Cruelty-free is an adjective.

Words near cruelty-free in the dictionary

  1. cruels
  2. cruelsome
  3. crueltie
  4. cruelties
  5. cruelty
  6. cruelty-free
  7. cruentaren
  8. cruentate
  9. cruentation
  10. cruentations
  11. cruentous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cruelty-free (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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Cite this entry: “cruelty-free.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cruelty-free. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.