cruel

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Now he’s better known as the villain of “Art Fight,” a reality competition show where he took cruel pleasure destroying amateurs’ hopes.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2026

“He is not ugly. This society is, when it’s greedy and cruel and doesn’t take care of people. Not him.”

From Salon • Apr. 6, 2026

Yet a few paragraphs later she describes the country with three adjectives, “big, cruel, and transcendent,” none of which is unambiguously positive, and urges readers to “make of it what we can.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026

"The cruel irony is that AI-generated code requires more careful review than human-written code," software engineer Siddhant Khare wrote in a blog post.

From Barron's • Mar. 30, 2026

It would be cruel to spring this on them too.

From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix