Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use brutal in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective

Brutal means savagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel, often in an unintelligent manner. Example: “The game was brutal, but after a bloodbath he finally won.”

Examples of brutal by meaning

adjectiveSavagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel, often in an unintelligent manner.

  • The game was brutal, but after a bloodbath he finally won.
  • What began as a zeitgeisty outlaw romp in the Uncool Britannia of the 1990s is now reborn as a scabrous and brutal black comedy about middle-aged male disappointment and fear of death.2017 January 19, Peter Bradshaw, “T2 Trainspotting review – choose a sequel that doesn't disappoint”, in the Guardian

More sentences with brutal

  • I can’t believe he bid the Syracuse turn; that can be brutal in the winter!From the entry bid
  • The brutal crackdown on protests has only served to galvanize the insurrectionary mood in the country.From the entry insurrectionary
  • I will do this no matter how brutal the ethnoreligious persecution could become.From the entry ethnoreligious
  • We stayed indoors to avoid the brutal heat.From the entry indoors
  • Getting heightmogged and framemogged from a girl is even more brutal.2023 December 8, Anonymous66601, “worst type of pain as a short guy”, in r/shortguys (Reddit post), archived from the original on 14 Feb…. From the entry framemog
  • The race descended into a brutal slugfest as the leading candidates, the author-turned-venture capitalist J.D.2022 April 30, Jonathan Weisman, Trip Gabriel, “Once Soft-Spoken, Ohio Conservatives Embrace the Bombast”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry slugfest
  • Even for hedge funds, multistrats are fabled for their brutal Darwinism.2022 October 27, Robin Wigglesworth, “Multi-strategy hedge funds are the new, superior fund-of-funds”, in Financial Times, London: The…. From the entry multistrat
  • Femicide and transvesticide show, in the most brutal way, the power relations of the current patriarchy.2020, Ana Isabel González Montes, “Argentinean Feminist Movements: Debates from praxis”, in Diana Mulinari, Khayaat Fakier, Nora Räthzel…. From the entry transvesticide
  • They're hard, often brutal, sometimes vicious to their wives, their 'drabbletails' (girlfriends), and one another.2018, Clancy Sigal, The London Lover: My Weekend that Lasted Thirty Years. From the entry drabble-tail
  • These are juxtaposed with brutal news footage and Isis YouTube propaganda.2018 May 11, Peter Bradshaw, “The Image Book review – Godard's eyeball-frazzling video essay bewilders and delights”, in The Guardian. From the entry macroaggression
  • Though twilight balms the west, my fears see something brutal in that nightward star.2007, Wayne Clifford, The Exile's Papers, page 94. From the entry nightward
  • But scientists around the world have also performed studies that are now considered bizarre or brutal.2007, Jon Cohen, “The Endangered Lab Chimp”, in Science, volume 315, number 5811, →DOI, page 451. From the entry chimponaut
  • Gerald's special mixture of laziness and ambition seemed to crystallize under the camera into brutal bumptiousness.2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 13, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN. From the entry bumptiousness
  • You're having a brutal year, with sales of Hyundais in Canada down nearly 20 per cent.2004 September 30, Michael Vaughan, “Five Questions for President, CEO Hyundai Canada”, in Globe and Mail, Toronto, retrieved 12 May 2008. From the entry rag the puck
  • The cause of ice ages, Köppen decided, is to be found in cool summers, not brutal winters.2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, published 2003, page 377. From the entry ice age
  • Among the casualties of this brutal Gnomicide are Snow White and her Seven Dwarves.2001 January 25, Adam Rozenhart, “Site Unseen”, in The Gateway, volume XC, number 30, page 26. From the entry gnomicide
  • There, because of Koranish law the state is brutal to offenders and crime just don't exist.2000 Eric jarvis, Re: I'm not violent, but, uk.local.london. From the entry Koranish
  • Local authorities sometimes are brutal in their efforts to crush the underground Christian church in peasant areas.1994, Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, →ISBN…. From the entry Xunyang
  • Good jonin' required a brutal wit, a sharp tongue, and a thick skin.1994, Nathan McCall, Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 23. From the entry joning
  • The 82 other members of the ship's company underwent 11 months of brutal captivity.1988 December 25, “Pueblo's Veterans Look Back on '68 in Anger”, in New York Times, retrieved 03 Aug 2012. From the entry ship's company
  • The well-known words depict a woman seeking sanctuary in a love relationship form a brutal, rapacious man.1984, Lawrence Starr, “Toward a Reevaluation of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess”, in American Music, volume 2, number 2, page 27. From the entry depict
  • Brutal compulsion was the necessary accompaniment of the large-scale organization and the extensive order introduced by kingship.1967, Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Harcourt, Brace & World, →ISBN, page 184. From the entry rabid
  • For ten brutal minutes he was in torment, then the pain gradually eased.1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life, Penguin, published 1968, Chapter , p. 185. From the entry sickly
  • I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t'aimais, je t'aimais!1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. From the entry turpid
  • It would make me a brutal scrunt, and you a whinging harridan in three years.1938, James Bridie, The Last Trump, Constable, page 29. From the entry scrunt
  • Rights groups have accused the government of exploiting the media blackout to carry out a brutal crackdown against protesters.2026 January 13, Deepa Parent, William Christou, “Hundreds of gunshot eye injuries found in one Iranian hospital amid brutal crackdown on…. From the entry exploit
  • Three cysts were found on his right lung and part of it was removed in a brutal operation.2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian. From the entry brush
  • Heather Heying’s observation is brutal: young women especially began treating ideologies the exact way evolution wired them to treat babies.2025 November 29, Ed Morrissey, quoting Camus @newstart_2024, “Saturday's Final Word”, in Hot Air. From the entry wrongthink
  • Veiksaar's half-baked .aic was running the camera feeds, and traced the path of destruction beginning in the workroom with brutal efficiency.2024 September 28, Harry Blank, “Not Ready for Prime Time”, in Deadlined, →ISBN, page 604. From the entry snap
  • Besides, with all the new books I’ve bought last year, I had to be brutal with my unhaul.2024 May 27, Jillian DeSousa, “Books I’ve Unhauled so Far in 2024”, in Jillian the Bookish Butterfly Blog, archived from the original on…. From the entry unhaul
  • A billion-dollar business with brutal market power.2019 Summer, Jay Tuck, “Mankind's Greatest Challenge: Artificial Intelligence”, in The Antioch Review, volume 77, number 3, →DOI, page 452. From the entry Googliath
  • Considering their civilization endured both the immense disaster of the Scourge and the brutal kett invasion, angara possess remarkably advanced technology.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Angara: Technology Codex entry. From the entry bare-bones
  • Sume cubozoans have truly brutal venom in their stingers, strong enough to have killed large numbers of humans.2016, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds, William Collins, published 2018, page 35. From the entry cubozoan
  • It was brutal, more brutal than normal.2016, Hollie Cradduck, Hollie's Road to Kona: A Young Woman's Ironman Mission, →ISBN. From the entry zip-tie
  • "Shame on those who defile the community by resorting to brutal combat, combat which results in bruises and a bloodied nose.2015, Yoni Elkins, Chelm Stories My Saba Sent Me, →ISBN, page 25. From the entry shonda
  • Now is not the time to kid yourself—face the brutal facts and get on with your rightsizing decision.2011, Bill Welter, Rightsizing Your Business: Breakthrough Strategies to Create a Flexible and Profitable Business in Any Economy, Simon…. From the entry rightsize
  • In Washington, some Republicans are skeptical that Thune has the fire in the belly for the brutal campaign process.2011 January 27, Michael Crowley, “Decision Time for Senator John Thune”, in Time. From the entry fire in the belly
  • I wonder if I was too brutal and aweless.2010, Iva-Marija Znaor, “Number Thirteen”, in The Sea of Bitterness: Amulet, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 33. From the entry aweless

Meaning of brutal

  1. adjective Savagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel, often in an unintelligent manner.
  2. adjective Crude or unfeeling in manner or speech.
  3. adjective Harsh; unrelenting.

Full definition of brutal

Questions about brutal in a sentence

How do you use brutal in a sentence?
Brutal is used as an adjective. For example: “The game was brutal, but after a bloodbath he finally won.”
What is a short sentence with brutal?
“A billion-dollar business with brutal market power.”
What does brutal mean?
Brutal means savagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel, often in an unintelligent manner.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brutal (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use brutal in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/brutal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.