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cruel

/ˈkɹuːəl/ adjective B1
  1. Intentionally 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.
  2. Harsh; severe. · We're certainly having quite a cruel winter this year.
  3. Cool; awesome; neat. (slang)

Comparative crueler · Superlative cruelest

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From the library

It was pretty interesting to imagine things about them--to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess.
Anne of Green Gables, p. 16 · C1
“Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?” sobbed Anne.
Anne of Green Gables, p. 166 · C1
“You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half hour.”
Pride and Prejudice, p. 28 · B2
Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and by the middle of June Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears,--an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope, that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton.
Pride and Prejudice, p. 269 · B2

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Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.