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Unwilling; averse; reluctant; hesitating; loath. For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves. Pope.

To toss about, as from man to man; to agitate. Let not obvious and known truth be bandied about in a disputation. I. Watts.

A cruel, savage, brutal man; one destitute of pity or humanity. "Thou fell barbarian." Philips.

A barbarous, cruel, or brutal action; an outrage. A heinous barbarism . . . against the honor of marriage. Milton.

Plain; simple; unadorned; without polish; bald; meager. "Uttering bare truth." Shak.

Metaphorically: A brutal, coarse, or morose person.

Fig.: A coarse, brutal, filthy, or degraded fellow.

Characterizing the nature of a beast; contrary to the nature and dignity of man; brutal; filthy. The beastly vice of drinking to excess. Swift.

A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith. No man can attain [to] belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth. Hooker.

belief in; to credit upon the authority or testimony of another; to be persuaded of the truth of, upon evidence furnished by reasons, arguments, and deductions of the mind, or by circumstances other than personal knowledge; to regard or accept as true; to place confidence in; to think; to consider; as, to believe a pe…

One who believes; one who is persuaded of the truth or reality of some doctrine, person, or thing.

To call or bellow, as the deer in rutting time; to make a bellowing sound; to roar. As loud as belleth wind in hell. Chaucer. The wild buck bells from ferny brake. Sir W. Scott.

A bellowing, as of a deer in rutting time. Johnson.

Pertaining to, or like, a beast; brutal. [R.] Animal and belluine life. Atterbury.

To swell and become protuberant, like the belly; to bulge. The bellying canvas strutted with the gale. Dryden.

A grandfather, or ancestor. "His great belsire Brute." [Obs.] Drayton.

Lower in rank, dignity, or excellence than; as, brutes are beneath man; man is beneath angels in the scale of beings. Hence: Unworthy of; unbecoming. He will do nothing that is beneath his high station. Atterbury.

Having the qualities of a beast; brutal; below the dignity of reason or humanity; irrational; carnal; beastly; sensual. Shak.

To make bestial, or like a beast; to degrade; to brutalize. The process of bestializing humanity. Hare.

sharp points pressed in; to mark by infixing points or spots here and there; to pierce. Truth shall retire Bestuck with slanderous darts. Milton.