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Fierce; savage; wild; indicating cruelty; ravenous; rapacious; as, ferocious look or features; a ferocious lion. The humbled power of a ferocious enemy. Lowth.

disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being. Atheism is a ferocious system, that leaves nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness. R. Hall. Atheism and pantheism are often wrongly confounded. Shipley.

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.

Having a cruel, ferocious disposition; bloodthirsty. Dryden.

Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of, a brute beast. Hence: Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless; as, brute violence. Macaulay. The influence of capital and mere brute labor. Playfair.

pent or lizard, with a crested head and enormous claws, and regarded as very powerful and ferocious. The dragons which appear in early paintings and sculptures are invariably representations of a winged crocodile. Fairholt.

ent in anger or cruelty; ready or eager to kill or injure; of a nature to inspire terror; ferocious. "A fierce whisper." Dickens. "A fierce tyrant." Pope. The fierce foe hung upon our broken rear. Milton. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion. Job. x. 16.

gray; grizzled. Old squirrels that turn grizzly. Bacon. Grizzly bear (Zoöl.), a large and ferocious bear (Ursus horribilis) of Western North America and the Rocky Mountains. It is remarkable for the great length of its claws.

lozing still, And grief is forced to laugh against her will. Sir H. Wotton. The scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a bloody ruffian. Burke. Sardonic grin or laugh, an old medical term for a spasmodic affection of the muscles of the face, giving it an appearance of laughter.

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

Capable of being tamed, subdued, or reclaimed from wildness or savage ferociousness. -- Tam"a*ble*ness, n.

Fig.: A ferocious, bloodthirsty person. As for heinous tiger, Tamora. Shak.

The quality or state of being truculent; savageness of manners; ferociousness.

Fierce; savage; ferocious; barbarous; as, the truculent inhabitants of Scythia. Ray.

The spirit or conduct of the Vandals; ferocious cruelty; hostility to the arts and literature, or willful destruction or defacement of their monuments.

Savage; uncivilized; not refined by culture; ferocious; rude; as, wild natives of Africa or America.