What's the difference between cruel and truculent?

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.

Truculent


Definition:

  • (a.) Fierce; savage; ferocious; barbarous; as, the truculent inhabitants of Scythia.
  • (a.) Cruel; destructive; ruthless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Ferguson's truculence conceals an even deeper romantic streak.
  • (2) In this dance to the music of time in Britain, the Tories are sworn to maintain the hegemony of the free market and Labour to ensure that the idiot punters don’t become too truculent.
  • (3) Western leaders, increasingly exasperated at Iran's nuclear truculence, were little assuaged by Iran's belated admission of the site's existence, which appears to have come after Iran learned that western intelligence services were on to its secret establishment.
  • (4) Yet Begin made the mistake of alienating Thatcher with his truculent stance over settlement expansion, and their relationship never recovered.
  • (5) Wreathed in smiles and profuse apologies for delaying Chisora, after he and Andy Gray had chit-chatted with the often truculent boxer on live radio, Keys delivers some cheery advice in the TalkSport studios.
  • (6) Less publicly, Trump appears tacitly or explicitly to have given the green light to the Saudi royals to go on the offensive against its truculent neighbour.
  • (7) The business secretary understands perfectly well that the slump is all about a want of demand – and cannot be explained by rightwing fairy stories about truculent workers pricing themselves out of the market.
  • (8) It was just bonkers," says Alan Postlethwaite, the truculent vicar of Seascale, who was accused of being a crypto-communist for even thinking the plant might be linked to cancers.
  • (9) There was the truculent Ray Donovan, featuring Jon Voight; the truculent Luck, starring Dustin Hoffman as an absurdly tetchy racetrack gambler and gangster, involving much mumbling in half-lit rooms; and there was the truculent Boss, starring Kelsey Grammer as a corrupt Chicago mayor, which never quite escaped the stigma of expecting Niles Crane to burst into the room in a flap about missing his appointment to visit the newly opened downtown doll museum.
  • (10) The Russian foreign ministry released a truculent statement before Tillerson arrived in Moscow, noting that Russian-American relations were going through the “most difficult period since the end of the cold war”.
  • (11) Her face is truculent; she stares up and away from Oberon, who is apparently being restrained by a sharp-faced Puck.
  • (12) He took after Rabelais in his humour and certainly also in his truculence, but he was above all himself in his films as in life."
  • (13) No, the bigger question is this: can Europe handle democracy, however awkward and messy and downright truculent it may be?
  • (14) Strongly Eurosceptic, with hardline anti-abortion views and hawkish foreign policy, he established himself as a truculent minister who was not afraid to make clear his opposition to coalition policies and Cameron's "compassionate conservatism".
  • (15) At a later date, speaking on Oprah Winfrey's chatshow, the famously truculent Campbell refused to comment further, saying simply: "I don't want to be involved in this man's case – he has done some terrible things and I don't want to put my family in danger."
  • (16) Edward VI was originally painted with his legs far apart, echoing a famously truculent image of his father – but it evidently looked too peculiar in a portrait of a young boy, and so the artist changed it to a more natural stance.
  • (17) All patients met Asher's description for the emergency presentation, the truculence-evasiveness manner, the luxuriance of tales, the eclecticism of the alleged symptoms, the vehement request of dangerous or painful procedures and the apparent senselessness.
  • (18) Cross-country runs began with a truculent jog until we were out of sight of the teachers, at which point we would repair to the nearest newsagent for sweets and fags.
  • (19) Nevertheless I went to Old Trafford, in some way heartened by the purity of the truculence, football now having been largely rinsed of its scintillating aggression.
  • (20) He is one of the most skilled practitioners of the tricky art – much under-rated, sometimes mocked – of keeping the show on the road when the cameras are rolling, dealing with truculent interviewees, sometimes juggling numerous stories and at others filling airtime with informed and engaging commentary when, frankly, there's not much going on.