Word.ws English Dictionary

was cruel to be kind

was cruel to be kind is the simple past of be cruel to be kind.

Meaning of be cruel to be kind

Verb

be cruel to be kind (third-person singular simple present is cruel to be kind, present participle being cruel to be kind, simple past was cruel to be kind, past participle been cruel to be kind)

  1. (idiomatic) To act cruelly in order to achieve a positive outcome in the future.
    • I muſt be cruell only to be kinde, / This bad beginnes, and worſe remaines behind.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...

Questions about was cruel to be kind

What is was cruel to be kind the simple past of?
Was cruel to be kind is the simple past of be cruel to be kind.

Words near was cruel to be kind in the dictionary

  1. was at the plague
  2. was awake
  3. was bored
  4. was born
  5. was born last week
  6. was cruel to be kind
  7. was done with
  8. was down with
  9. was gathered to one's fathers
  10. was good for
  11. was in each other's pockets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: was cruel to be kind (page history and authors); be cruel to be kind (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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