adverb

• 1(with reference to a person) in a way that wilfully causes pain or suffering to others.

  ‘he marries Edgar's sister Isabella and cruelly ill-treats her’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Estella marries Bentley, by whom she is cruelly ill-treated.’
  • ‘The journey takes her to Vietnam, where she confronts - sometimes cruelly - her Vietnamese family.’
  • ‘His literary criticism, often intemperate, was cruelly dismissive of his fellow Irish writers.’
  • ‘His portrayal of the cruelly cunning main character is what ultimately drives the film.’
  • ‘The painter cruelly depicts the ambitions of the middle class, now naked for all to see.’
  • ‘The director's favourite vantage point is that of a god who is cruelly indifferent to our individual fates.’
  • ‘Her desire to pass as white is presented without a great deal of judgment, except insofar as she acts cruelly towards her mother.’
  • ‘He cruelly locks the dog out of the house in the middle of the night.’
  • ‘His harmless jokes turn nasty, though, when he cruelly pretends to have died.’

  1. 1.1(with reference to an event) in a way that causes pain or suffering.
     ‘their hopes were cruelly dashed’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Political idealism is cruelly betrayed by successive waves of political oppression.’
     • ‘The second movement was simply gorgeous, especially in the cruelly demanding central section, which really caught wing.’
     • ‘The DVDs foster the cult of the cruelly cancelled show way too much for my taste.’
     • ‘The inadequacies of the national orchestra were cruelly exposed in this recording.’
     • ‘Some of the world's greatest art is exhausting, and painful, and just as cruelly revelatory.’
     • ‘Boy meets girl, falls in love but fate intervenes cruelly and compels them to part ways.’
     • ‘Vivaldi's writing tends to treat the voice like a violin, and as such, it can be cruelly difficult (but rewarding).’
     • ‘The horrendous accident cruelly cut short the career of an incomparable artist, who was already famous as one of the greatest horn players of all time.’
     • ‘It was not the mythical, moral (but in reality often cruelly repressive and deceitful) 1950s but rather the supposedly lamentable late 1960s that this film was concerned with.’
     • ‘It seems cruelly ironic that the sculptor, once ridiculed for the mirrors' construction, should not, until now, have received credit for their design.’