Forms: 3–6 cruelte, (4 cruelete, creweltie), 4–6 crualte, (5 crueltee, 6 cruaulte), 5–7 crueltie, 6– cruelty. [a. OF. crualté (later cruauté), according to Hatzfeld:—pop.L. type *crūdālitāt-em, for crūdēlitāt-em (see CRUDELITY), whence the other Romanic forms Pr. cruzeltat, Sp. crueldad, It. crudeltà, -ità.]
1. The quality of being cruel; disposition to inflict suffering; delight in or indifference to the pain or misery of others; mercilessness, hard-heartedness: esp. as exhibited in action. Also, with pl., an instance of this, a cruel deed.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 268. Þus he liteð cruelte mid heowe of rihtwisnesse.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 78. Of his crueltes he gynnes for to assuage.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., III. viii. 324. Deedis of cruelte and of vnpitee.
1531. Elyot, Gov., II. vii. The vice called crueltie, whiche is contrary to mercye.
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., V. iii. 76. ’Tis a cruelty, To load a falling man.
1655–60. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 40/1. All, whom the Cruelty of War suffer’d to escape.
1773. Observ. State Poor, 43. The cruelty of a Nero, or a Domitian.
1866. Kingsley, Herew., I. iii. 111. Began boasting once more, of his fights, his cruelties, his butcheries.
1871. R. W. Dale, Commandm., iii. 83. It would be brutal cruelty to make a jest of the weakness and sufferings of the patients in an hospital.
† 2. Severity of pain; excessive suffering. Obs.
14[?]. Circunsision, in Tundale’s Vis. (1843), 87. With full grete cruelte For us he suffurd circunsysyon Upon the cros.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 168. A tedious sicknesse … continued with such cruelty, that neuer any man was brought lower.
† 3. Severity, strictness, rigor. Obs.
1556. Aurelio & Isab. (1608), K v. It sholde be beter to faille a litell in the iustice, than to be superflue in crualte.
1636. Sir H. Blount, Voy. Levant (1637), 13. The want of crueltie upon delinquents causes much more oppression of the Innocent, which is the greatest crueltie of all.
† 4. Strength or harshness (of smell); ill savor.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., XII. 81. Of crueltee noo thing wol in hem [Garlic, etc.] smelle.
