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Clotho held the rocke, the whiles the thread By grisly Lachesis was spun with pain, That cruel Atropos eftsoon undid. Spenser.

nt-blank (rovers usually being beyond the point-blank range). Fair Venusson that with thy cruel dart At that good knoght cunningly didst rove. Spenser.

A boisterous, cruel, brutal fellow; a desperate fellow ready for murderous or cruel deeds; a cutthroat. Wilt thou on thy deathbed play the ruffian Shak.

Having no ruth; cruel; pitiless. Their rage the hostile bands restrain, All but the ruthless monarch of the main. Pope. -- Ruth"less*ly, adv. -- Ruth"less*ness, n.

Bloodthirsty; cruel; eager to shed blood. Passion . . . makes us brutal and sanguinary. Broome.

Characterized by cruelty; barbarous; fierce; ferocious; inhuman; brutal; as, a savage spirit.

An act of cruelty; barbarity. The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke, That ever wall-eyed wrath or staring rage Presented to the tears of soft remorse. Shak.

A slight contest; a skirmish. See Skirmish. [Obs.] Such cruel game my scarmoges disarms. Spenser.

To fasten; to fix. [Obs.] As when a bear hath seized her cruel claws Upon the carcass of some beast too weak. Spenser.

Harshness; cruel treatment; sharpness of punishment; as, severity practiced on prisoners of war.

Cutting in language or import; biting; sarcastic; cruel; harsh; rigorous; severe; as, a sharp rebuke. "That sharp look." Tennyson. To that place the sharp Athenian law Can not pursue us. Shak. Be thy words severe, Sharp as merits but the sword forbear. Dryden.

A woman; a female; -- used substantively. [R.] Lady, you are the cruelest she alive. Shak.

e of sink, imprison or set free. Prior. If I have a conscience, let it sink me. Shak. Thy cruel and unnatural lust of power Has sunk thy father more than all his years. Rowe.

ners. -- Slave driver, one who superintends slaves at their work; hence, figuratively, a cruel taskmaster. -- Slave hunt. (a) A search after persons in order to reduce them to slavery. Barth. (b) A search after fugitive slaves, often conducted with bloodhounds. -- Slave ship, a vessel employed in the slave trade or…

lth, for the purpose of killing, as game. As for shooting a man from behind a wall, it is cruelly like to stalking a deer. Sir W. Scott.

Hard-hearted; cruel; pitiless; unfeeling.

Inflexible; cruel; unrelenting; pitiless; obdurate; perverse; cold; morally hard; appearing as if petrified; as, a stony heart; a stony gaze. Stony coral. (Zoöl.) Same as Stone coral, under Stone.

A long, narrow discoloration of the skin made by the blow of a lash, rod, or the like. Cruelty marked him with inglorious stripes. Thomson.

bbed ice. Shak. Vivid and picturesque turns of expression which thrill the M. Arnold. The cruel word her tender heart so thrilled, That sudden cold did run through every vein. Spenser.

the objective case. Thyself shalt see the act. Shak. Ere I do thee, thou to thyself wast cruel. Milton.