How to Use cruel in a Sentence

cruel

adjective
  • Hunger is a cruel fact of nature.
  • The cruelest part is that the good ones are mixed with the bad ones.
    — Matt Rivers, ABC News, 9 Apr. 2025
  • The Bible tells us that jealousy is as cruel as the grave.
    — Lisa Respers France, CNN, 13 Aug. 2021
  • The measure passed Thursday is one of the cruelest yet.
    — Tori Otten, The New Republic, 4 May 2023
  • As the clock winds down, Fenn might be in for a cruel summer.
    — Queenie Wong, Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2023
  • It’s the cruel racist joke that still hangs above the Statehouse door.
    — al, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Jokes that didn’t land with the squad The kids in Bad Influence say the pranks were the most cruel.
    — Olivia B. Waxman, Time, 9 Apr. 2025
  • The reality is, to go on the run with the child is cruel and not fair.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 5 Mar. 2024
  • But no more cruel than denying him for the past 35 years.
    — Greg Cote, Miami Herald, 4 Mar. 2025
  • The sport was very cruel in those decades, the sixties, the seventies and part of the eighties.
    — Jim Clash, Forbes, 18 Oct. 2024
  • The brides did indeed find a strange (and cruel) way of showing it.
    — R. Eric Thomas, The Denver Post, 3 Oct. 2024
  • Online trolls told me the things my own brain was telling me at its cruelest.
    — Sarah Bence, Verywell Health, 8 July 2024
  • The former is humble and kind, the latter is rich and cruel.
    — Jessica Roiz, Billboard, 6 Apr. 2023
  • But the school’s photographer assigned me to the back row, next to the tallest boy in the class—such cruel fate!
    — Thessaly La Force, Vogue, 18 Jan. 2024
  • To do that to a writer — or to anyone about their work — is cruel.
    — Laurie Hertzel, Chicago Tribune, 26 Nov. 2022
  • Fame has its burdens, some of which can be cruel to the psyche.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 24 May 2022
  • Of course, returning the cat at this point would be cruel.
    — John Hodgman, New York Times, 8 Sep. 2022
  • Shahana Goswami plays the lead role of a widow who lands the job of a cop due to life’s cruel twists.
    — Sweta Kaushal, Forbes, 6 Jan. 2025
  • Shih has a rich voice and a stillness in his manner that makes his cruel words linger.
    — Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Oct. 2023
  • Nick Lowe and Shakespeare were wrong, about having to be cruel to be kind.
    — Chris Willman, Variety, 2 Sep. 2022
  • The rumors are terrible and cruel but this time, one of them was true.
    — Kelsie Gibson, Peoplemag, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Rights groups have been outraged over the hijab law and the cruel ways it is enforced.
    — Artemis Moshtaghian and Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN, 5 Mar. 2025
  • But that doesn’t mean that the balmier Aurica won’t be cruel to a lot of species.
    — Stav Dimitropoulos, Popular Mechanics, 25 May 2022
  • So casually cruel, in the name of nothing at all — just for the hell of it.
    — Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 2 Sep. 2022
  • Gracie has a rather cruel habit of telling her teenage daughter that her arms are too fat.
    — Tom Gliatto, Peoplemag, 30 Nov. 2023
  • None of it was cruel, and the skit was carefully rehearsed.
    — Marc Myers, WSJ, 1 Feb. 2022
  • These ghosts are old and young, cruel and playful, loved or unknown.
    — Hazlitt, 29 Nov. 2022
  • But Oz was born to take every cheap shot presented by the cruelest of fates.
    — Andy Andersen, Vulture, 3 Nov. 2024
  • This is cruel and defies the core tenets of the world’s second-largest religion.
    — Amina J. Mohammed and Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, WSJ, 11 Nov. 2021
  • His baptism at the major league level has been a cruel joke.
    — Tony Blengino, Forbes.com, 3 Apr. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cruel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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