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n; hard-hearted; merciless. Behold a people cometh from the north country; . . . they are cruel and have no mercy. Jer. vi. 22,23.

In a cruel manner.

Cruelty. [Obs.] Spenser.

Glandular scrofulous swellings in the neck.

The attribute or quality of being cruel; a disposition to give unnecessary pain or suffering to others; inhumanity; barbarity. Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty. Shak.

; excruciating distress. But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage. Ex. vi. 9. Anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child. Jer. iv. 31.

Enormous wickedness; extreme heinousness or cruelty.

proceedings from, daring effrontery or contempt of law, morality, or decorum. "Audacious cruelty." "Audacious prate." Shak.

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.

Cruelty; ferociousness; inhumanity. Treating Christians with a barbarity which would have shocked the very Moslem. Macaulay.

Cruel; ferocious; inhuman; merciless. By their barbarous usage he died within a few days, to the grief of all that knew him. Clarendon.

; ignoble; mean; illiberal; menial; as, a base fellow; base motives; base occupations. "A cruel act of a base and a cowardish mind." Robynson (More's Utopia). "Base ingratitude." Milton.

Characterized by sharpness, severity, or cruelty; harsh; stern; virulent; as, bitter reproach. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Col. iii. 19.

, or forbidding, like darkness; destitute of moral light or goodness; atrociously wicked; cruel; mournful; calamitous; horrible. "This day's black fate." "Black villainy." "Arise, black vengeance." "Black day." "Black despair." Shak.

In a bloody manner; cruelly; with a disposition to shed blood.

Disposition to shed blood; bloodthirstiness. All that bloodiness and savage cruelty which was in our nature. Holland.

One who sheds blood; a cruel, bloodthirsty man; one guilty of bloodshed; a murderer. [Obs.] Shak.

Eager to shed blood; cruel; sanguinary; murderous. -- Blood"thirst`i*ness (n.

Given, or tending, to the shedding of blood; having a cruel, savage disposition; murderous; cruel. Some bloody passion shakes your very frame. Shak.