What's the difference between cruel and nasty?

Cruel


Definition:

  • (n.) See Crewel.
  • (a.) Disposed to give pain to others; willing or pleased to hurt, torment, or afflict; destitute of sympathetic kindness and pity; savage; inhuman; hard-hearted; merciless.
  • (a.) Causing, or fitted to cause, pain, grief, or misery.
  • (a.) Attended with cruetly; painful; harsh.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) China’s new law also restricts the right of media to report on details of terror attacks, including a provision that media and social media cannot report on details of terror activities that might lead to imitation, nor show scenes that are “cruel and inhuman”.
  • (2) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
  • (3) It goes on: "In a reality of ongoing occupation, of solid cynicism and meanness, each and every one of us bears the moral obligation to try to relieve the suffering, do something to bend back the occupation's giant, cruel hand."
  • (4) At one point, Walters speculates that “she looks the same weight as the Duchess – about 8st”; later, he disingenuously asks her to discuss “the cruel comments about being a ‘childless spinster’”, neither telling readers who made those “cruel comments” in the first place, or where.
  • (5) More here: UK regulator urges banks to speed up swaps mis-selling compensation 8.40am GMT More reaction to the decision to send riot police to evict people from the offices of Greece's former state broadcaster this morning , starting with journalist Nick Malkoutzis: Nick Malkoutzis (@NickMalkoutzis) 5 mths after flicking switch on public broadcaster ERT, gov't tries to settle issue by sending riot police to remove remaining staff #Greece November 7, 2013 Nick Malkoutzis (@NickMalkoutzis) While #ERT will be off air for good after police intervention, the stain of how its closure has been handled won't wash away easily #Greece November 7, 2013 Lady Mondegreen (@amaenad) Like a mean stupid dog appeasing a cruel master, the Greek government wants to lay ERT's limp body at the troika's feet.
  • (6) The government confirmed on Tuesday that the second year of the cull had begun, sparking outrage from animal rights activists, campaigners and opposition politicians who claim it is cruel and ineffective.
  • (7) Her friends have been arrested and subjected to what they describe as cruel and inhumane treatment .
  • (8) The jury decided unanimously Thursday that the Colorado attack was cruel enough to justify the death penalty .
  • (9) One of its board members is retired Major General Andrew James “Jim” Molan, co-architect of Tony Abbott’s “Operation Sovereign Borders,” the draconian program relying on the remote island detention centres condemned as cruel and inhumane by multiple respected human rights organisations.
  • (10) MOAB map “Isis were so cruel to us,” said Ahmad.
  • (11) Philip French championed Boyle's career from the outset, describing his debut feature film, Shallow Grave , as "a good piece of storytelling... Hitchcock would have admired its ruthlessness and cruel humour."
  • (12) S an Francisco is now a cruel place and a divided one.
  • (13) In a rather florid letter with classical, literary and historical references, he told her: "You, I already know from happy experience, will not be cruel to my tender flame … As I think of you I shall learn to love you more.
  • (14) Of course the timing was cruel, aimed at throwing the prime minister off balance just before what turned out to be a fairly successful Commons question time.
  • (15) He could be very charming, he could be very cruel, but he mattered and he put something together that was extraordinary."
  • (16) One of the first demands is that the bombardments by the regime and its [Russian] backers must end.” Merkel condemned the air raids on Syria’s second city as “inhumane and cruel”.
  • (17) While Liverpool seemed stretched by cruel successive away fixtures, Chelsea arguably mustered some of their finest attacking football of the campaign through that ferocious opening period.
  • (18) If you follow Twitter regularly, it's easy to believe that many of our fellow citizens are cruel, mean, misogynist and foul-mouthed.
  • (19) We perceive the circumstances of our youth as normal and unexceptional, however sparse or cruel they may be.
  • (20) "It's outrageous and cruel that people are taken off to detention and the families hear nothing until the body shows up with signs of abuse," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

Nasty


Definition:

  • (superl.) Offensively filthy; very dirty, foul, or defiled; disgusting; nauseous.
  • (superl.) Hence, loosely: Offensive; disagreeable; unpropitious; wet; drizzling; as, a nasty rain, day, sky.
  • (superl.) Characterized by obcenity; indecent; indelicate; gross; filthy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) How does it stack up against the competition – and are there any nasties in the small print?
  • (2) Admirably, Clinton kept her cool throughout, particularly Trump when spoke over her to call her “such a nasty woman”.
  • (3) He wanted to stay on longer than the traditional retirement age but became involved in a nasty spat with the then-chairman, Peter Sutherland.
  • (4) It is the latest attack on the government from the Hungarian economist, whose previous criticism of David Cameron's "nasty" looking restrictions on benefits for foreigners led the angry prime minister to lodge a formal complaint.
  • (5) Protesters waved banners with slogans such as “Special relationship, just say no” and “Nasty women unite”.
  • (6) The examples I have quoted are the tip of a very large and very nasty iceberg.
  • (7) In short, it is alleged that under his rule Sri Lanka is becoming a nasty, authoritarian quasi-rogue banana republic.
  • (8) Patterson agrees that it’s all much more controlled now, but she also wonders whether at times the media can be too negative, doomy, and sometimes downright nasty.
  • (9) And I’m sorry, that will come before any internal party-political issue and I think I should be able to adopt that position without being attacked, without being subject to a nasty troll-form of politics.” On Tuesday the prime minister, David Cameron, promised to publish a comprehensive strategy on Syria in the form of a written response to a report by the foreign affairs select committee, which concluded that the government had failed to make the case for extending airstrikes.
  • (10) Al-Azhar, the Sunni Muslim world’s leading centre of Islamic learning, called on Muslims to “ignore the nasty frivolity” of the latest edition.
  • (11) He was followed by Theresa May, who 13 years ago had warned that many voters thought the Conservatives were the “nasty party”, but who now pledged to clamp down on the rights of asylum seekers, and renewed her commitment to cut net migration to below 100,000 in terms so harsh that she was widely condemned even by her allies.
  • (12) I think it probably gave me a sense of self and self-protection that has been very useful, and I possibly have had less nasty moments than a lot of other women.
  • (13) Dr Rosemary Gillespie was the object of a “nasty, vindictive and sustained campaign of bullying” from her second day in the job at the UK’s biggest HIV charity, the tribunal heard.
  • (14) It had a “flat, nasty” ring to it, she says, which she has since “analysed like a Rubik’s cube; I have turned it every which way.
  • (15) Updated at 2.10pm BST 1.47pm BST Over to America, where the latest productivity figures confirm that the US economy took a nasty jolt over the winter, when bad weather gripped the country.
  • (16) It doesn't have to be bloody, it doesn't have to be nasty, but it does have to be fought."
  • (17) That was the one surprise in the budget – apart from the fine print of the nasties.
  • (18) Because the nastiness on our doorstep has piled too high for too long, and I just want to get out of the house.
  • (19) Southampton 3-0 Vitesse | Europa League third qualifying round match report Read more Even more damagingly for West Ham, they lost Enner Valencia to a potentially nasty knee injury in the first half after he caught his leg in the turf.
  • (20) They orginally had lofty ambitions of talking about the economy but since they have lost that argument so catastrophically, they have reached for the Ukip playbook to create fictitious stories to scare people about immigrants and release video nasties about Turkish people”.