Cruel

How to spell cruel

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cruel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cruel mean?

1. adjectiveDeliberately causing pain or suffering, or showing no concern for it.

Cruel in a sentence

• The new manager had a cruel habit of mocking staff in meetings.

• Keeping the dog chained outside all winter was undeniably cruel.

Where does cruel come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word reached English in the early 1200s through Old French cruel, which descended from the Latin crudelis, meaning 'hard-hearted', 'severe', or 'unfeeling'. That Latin adjective was built on crudus, which literally meant 'raw', 'unripe', or 'bloody', the same root that gives us the modern English word 'crude'. The mental image behind the word is something raw and unsoftened, a temperament that has never been cooked or tempered into gentleness. Over the centuries the sense settled firmly on the deliberate infliction of pain or the indifference to suffering. The spelling trap is the quiet '-el' ending: many writers expect a double 'l' or an 'le', yet cruel keeps a single 'l' just as its French ancestor did.

How the word is built

• cru- (from Latin crudus: raw, rough, bloody)
• -el (adjectival ending via Old French)