Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use cruelly in a sentence

11 example sentences · adverb

Cruelly means in a cruel manner; with cruelty. Example: “Unfortunately, if certain national leaders have their way and repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the American dreams of hundreds of thousands of young people will be cruelly ripped away.”

Examples of cruelly by meaning

adverbIn a cruel manner; with cruelty.

  • Unfortunately, if certain national leaders have their way and repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the American dreams of hundreds of thousands of young people will be cruelly ripped away.2017 August 24, Jay Inslee, “American dreams of young people will be cruelly ripped away”, in CNN

More sentences with cruelly

  • Every time she got close to eating some delicious waffley goodness, fate cruelly snatched that chance away.2017–2020, Laura Greenwood, Skye MacKinnon, Seven Wardens: The Complete Collection, Peryton Press. From the entry waffley
  • The operation of taboos – or kapu – kept society ordered, quite cruelly on occasion.2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 43. From the entry kapu
  • The caption, of a Tarzan cruelly ravaged by time, is 'But even the beautiful can age.'1993 November 28, “You never forget a good nanny”, in The Guardian, Manchester. From the entry Tarzan
  • Alive to his inbred purpose and cruelly insensate to every other need or value or belief."1983, Stephen R. Donaldson, White Gold Wielder, page 459. From the entry tracible
  • Bond had pulled her head back by her hair and had kissed her once, long and cruelly.1957, Ian Fleming, chapter 22, in From Russia With Love. From the entry icily
  • On the third night he is supremely confident, and cruelly disabused by his mispull of the third card.2010, Lauren G. Leighton, Esoteric Tradition in Russian Romantic Literature, page 142. From the entry mispull
  • Her eyes still closed, his aunt smiled cruelly.2005, James Doss, The Witch's Tongue, →ISBN, page 178. From the entry beetle
  • Gudrun, new from her life in Chelsea and Sussex, shrank cruelly from this amorphous ugliness of a small colliery town in the Midlands.1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 1, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for…. From the entry amorphous
  • England has suffered cruelly because she would not think, because she was case-armoured in her insular conceit and the urbacity of her politicians.1918, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, volume 125, page 388. From the entry urbacity
  • In the meanwhile, the surveyors carried the line three miles, which was no contemptible day's work, considering how cruelly they were entangled with briers and gallbushes.Quoted in 2002, Stephen C. Ausband, Byrd's Line: A Natural History (page 37). From the entry meanwhile

Meaning of cruelly

  1. adverb In a cruel manner; with cruelty.
  2. adverb To a degree that is cruel.

Full definition of cruelly

Questions about cruelly in a sentence

How do you use cruelly in a sentence?
Cruelly is used as an adverb. For example: “Unfortunately, if certain national leaders have their way and repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the American dreams of hundreds of thousands of young people will be cruelly ripped away.”
What is a short sentence with cruelly?
“Her eyes still closed, his aunt smiled cruelly.”
What does cruelly mean?
Cruelly means in a cruel manner; with cruelty.

Source and license

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