cruel – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of cruel

Adjective: cruel

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativecrueler; crueller
Superlativecruelest; cruellest

Perifrastic

Comparativemore cruel
Superlativemost cruel

Sample Sentences

  • The supervisor was very cruel to Josh, as he would always give Josh the hardest, most degrading work he could find.
  • We're certainly having quite a cruel winter this year.
  • The thought that something might befall him that would leave her entirely at the mercy of this beast caused him greater anxiety than the probability that almost certain death awaited her should she be left entirely alone upon the outskirts of the cruel forest. [1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 193:]
  • 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:]

Adjectives inflected like cruel

delightful, cruel, wilful, cheerful, willful,

Etymology

From Middle English cruel, borrowed from Old French cruel, from Latin crūdēlis (“hard, severe, cruel”), akin to crūdus (“raw, crude”); see crude. See: Latin Adjectives 'crūdēlis'.