Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use cruel in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, adverb, verb

Cruel means intentionally causing or reveling in pain and suffering; merciless, heartless. Example: “The supervisor was very cruel to Josh, as he would always give Josh the hardest, most degrading work he could find.”

Examples of cruel by meaning

adjectiveIntentionally 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.

adjectiveHarsh; severe.

  • We're certainly having quite a cruel winter this year.
  • You may be sure they watched the cliffs on their left eagerly for any sign of a break or any place where they could climb them; but those cliffs remained cruel.1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia
  • He was physically the toughest of us and wore five layers of polar clothing, but the cold was cruel and wore us down hour after hour.2013, Ranulph Fiennes, Cold: Extreme Adventures at the Lowest Temperatures on Earth

adverbTo a great degree; terribly.

  • But 'e does try one cruel at times."1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
  • 'I've never got arthritis, though my old dad had it something cruel.'2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 219

verbTo spoil or ruin (one's chance of success).

  • What cruelled him was that Imperial Hotel contract.1937, Vance Palmer, Legend for Sanderson, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, page 226
  • He was on the fringes of Test selection last year before a shoulder injury cruelled his chances.2014 April 1, The Sydney Morning Herald
  • A shortage of berth space for mega container ships will restrict capacity at Melbourne's port, cruelling Labor's attempts to get maximum value from its privatisation, a leading shipping expert has warned.2015 September 8, The Age

verbTo violently provoke (a child) in the belief that this will make them more assertive.

  • Violence is apparently introduced early by the practice of "cruelling": children even in their first months are physically punished and then encouraged to seek retribution by punishing the punisher.2007, Stewart Motha, “Reconciliation as Domination”, in Scott Veitch, editor, Law and the Politics of Reconciliation, Routledge, published...

More sentences with cruel

  • He grinned a cruel sneer when I begged him to stop.From the entry grin
  • The cruel punishment was countenanced by the government, although it was not officially legal.From the entry countenance
  • Although his action was egregious and cruel, I'm not sure if it is litigable.From the entry litigable
  • She played a cruel prank on him.From the entry prank
  • Behind the smile was a cruel intention.From the entry behind
  • You have done me an unkindness with your cruel deeds.From the entry unkindness
  • James played along with their cruel trick.From the entry play along
  • This most cruel betrayal led him to Timonism.From the entry Timonism
  • His heart was cruel and tigrish.From the entry tigrish
  • James thought it was cruel for the fraternity members to make the pledge think his father had died suddenly and refused to play along.From the entry play along
  • Former associates have described Musk as petty, cruel and petulant, particularly when frustrated or challenged.2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in TIME, archived from the…. From the entry petulant
  • How to destroy someone in one cruel line. (For the record, you are punching there chum).”2021 October 7, Nancy Brown, “MAFSA viewers furious over Bryce’s treatment of wife Melissa”, in Entertainment Daily. From the entry punching
  • Both artists were charming, shameless and cruel, and revelled in what Bacon called an “atmosphere of threat”.2017 October, “A portrait of the artists as a pair of young wastrels”, in Standpoint Magazine, archived from the original on 28 Sep 2017. From the entry priapic
  • He described how Tenorinho was subjected to cruel tortures after proclaiming his innocence: he denied everything.2012, J. Patrice McSherry, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, →ISBN…. From the entry parrilla
  • They seem to especially like it when I am cruel to women.2012, Peter Sotos, Jamie Gillis, “Eve”, in Pure Filth, Port Townsend, Wash.: Feral House, →ISBN, page 289. From the entry pamby
  • This likens the insect to another otherish human―not impossibly cruel this time, but impossibly brilliant.2007, Charlotte Sleigh, Six legs better: a cultural history of myrmecology. From the entry otherish
  • He had a hard edge to him that made it impossible not to peep his cruel nature.2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 58. From the entry peep
  • Listen, honeybunch, I don't want to be cruel, but you've got to think of everything.2005, Nancy Garden, Good Moon Rising, page 107. From the entry honeybunch
  • Cruel trick of step children; he stood in the courtyard debloused, blindfolded and cold.2003, Brennan Chadwick Emerson, Windfall, →ISBN, page 34. From the entry deblouse
  • They'd beaten the cruel giant, who ended up floating out to sea.1997, Clayton Emery, The Tale of the Campfire Vampires, Aladdin Paperbacks, →ISBN. From the entry pukwudgie
  • The cruel set of her mouth gave a ferocity and a distinction to her expression.1995, Caroline Blackwood, The Last of the Duchess, Pantheon Books, →ISBN, pages 48-49. From the entry overexcessive
  • It is never, as Westerners often think, a cruel form of punishment.1981, John Edwin Hudelson, The Expansion and Development of Quichua Transitional Culture in the Upper Amazon Basin, page 145. From the entry nettler
  • Many times in farming practice we are cruel but we cannot avoid being cruel.1960 Sep., Thomas Templeton Murray, “Animals Protection Bill”, in parliamentary debates (House of Representatives), volume 324, page 2193. From the entry be cruel to be kind
  • "It’s a crime crueller and infinitely worse in its results than murder.1928, Dorothy L. Sayers, The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker, spoken by Sir Impey Biggs. From the entry blackmailer
  • It is too proud, too austere, too true, and too tonically cruel to appeal to mandarins.1917, Arnold Bennett, Books and Persons. From the entry tonically
  • A rictus of cruel malignity lit up greyly their old bony faces.1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. From the entry rictus
  • There were men there who had committed merciless robberies, cruel murders, heartless swindles, abominable depravities.1914, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 16, in The Subterranean Brotherhood. From the entry depravity
  • And then, from unseen lips, a cruel and mocking peal of laughter rang through the desolate place.1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as…. From the entry ingress
  • She must be cruel to be kind.–a little cruel to be very kind.1909, Caleb Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics, page 44. From the entry be cruel to be kind
  • Let no man say that the Devil is not a cruel tyrant.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide. From the entry yea

Meaning of cruel

  1. adjective Intentionally causing or reveling in pain and suffering; merciless, heartless.
  2. adjective Harsh; severe.
  3. adjective Cool; awesome; neat.

Full definition of cruel

Questions about cruel in a sentence

How do you use cruel in a sentence?
Cruel is used as an adjective, adverb and verb. For example: “The supervisor was very cruel to Josh, as he would always give Josh the hardest, most degrading work he could find.”
What is a short sentence with cruel?
“His heart was cruel and tigrish.”
What does cruel mean?
Cruel means intentionally causing or reveling in pain and suffering; merciless, heartless.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cruel (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 cruel in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/cruel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.