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To treat cruelly or improperly; to ill use; to maltreat.

The quality of being imbecile; weakness; feebleness, esp. of mind. Cruelty . . . argues not only a depravedness of nature, but also a meanness of courage and imbecility of mind. Sir W. Temple.

Pitiless; cruel. [Obs.]

To advance or progress in bad qualities; to grow worse. "Domitain improved in cruelty." Milner.

o stain; to saturate; to imbue; to infix deeply. Our fields ingrained with blood. Daniel. Cruelty and jealousy seem to be ingrained in a man who has these vices at all. Helps.

Destitute of the kindness and tenderness that belong to a human being; cruel; barbarous; savage; unfeeling; as, an inhuman person or people.

The quality or state of being inhuman; cruelty; barbarity. Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn. Burns.

In an inhuman manner; cruelly; barbarously.

resembled Nero in their extravagance, much more did they resemble and even exceed him in cruelty and injustice. Burke.

nce; any immoderate indulgence of the appetites or passions. God is in every creature; be cruel toward none, neither abuse any by intemperance. Jer. Taylor. Some, as thou sawest, by violent stroke shall die, By fire, flood, famine, by intemperance more In meats and drinks. Milton.

r a bad sense; as, to invent the machinery of a poem; to invent a falsehood. Whate'er his cruel malice could invent. Milton. He had invented some circumstances, and put the worst possible construction on others. Sir W. Scott.

Hard-hearted; unfeeling; cruel; as, an iron-hearted master. Cowper.

's pitch, asphaltum; bitumen. -- The Wandering Jew, an imaginary personage, who, for his cruelty to the Savior during his passion, is doomed to wander on the earth till Christ's second coming.

an of a group of tribes of Orissa, India, a section of whom were formerly noted for their cruel human sacrifices to the earth goddess, murder of female infants, and marriage by capture.

enevolent; benignant; gracious. He is kind unto the unthankful and to evil. Luke vi 35. O cruel Death, to those you take more kind Than to the wretched mortals left behind. Waller. A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind. Garrick.

Laconian; characteristic of, or like, the Spartans; hence, stern or severe; cruel; unflinching. His head had now felt the razor, his back the rod; all that laconical discipline pleased him well. Bp. Hall.

Manlike; not womanly; masculine; bold; cruel. [Obs] Are women grown so mankind Must they be wooing Beau. & Fl. Be not too mankind against your wife. Chapman.

The killing of a considerable number of human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty, or contrary to the usages of civilized people; as, the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day.

Destitute of mercy; cruel; unsparing; -- said of animate beings, and also, figuratively, of things; as, a merciless tyrant; merciless waves. The foe is merciless, and will not pity. Shak.

Subject of laughter, derision, or sport. The cruel handling of the city whereof they made a mockery. 2 Macc. viii. 17.