What's the difference between cruel and vicious?

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.

Vicious


Definition:

  • (a.) Characterized by vice or defects; defective; faulty; imperfect.
  • (a.) Addicted to vice; corrupt in principles or conduct; depraved; wicked; as, vicious children; vicious examples; vicious conduct.
  • (a.) Wanting purity; foul; bad; noxious; as, vicious air, water, etc.
  • (a.) Not correct or pure; corrupt; as, vicious language; vicious idioms.
  • (a.) Not well tamed or broken; given to bad tricks; unruly; refractory; as, a vicious horse.
  • (a.) Bitter; spiteful; malignant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Los Angeles were relentless in their vicious pursuit of a game-tying goal on Wednesday, bidding to send Game 4 into overtime.
  • (2) But when in mid-October two of the artists received death threats, the menaces were widely reported and rekindled debate, prompting vicious, anti-Muslim comments on Danish talk shows.
  • (3) When he attacked New York, his vicious crusade was as much against skyscrapers as it was against western values and the US.
  • (4) A vicious feud playing out within Uzbekistan's ruling family took a new twist on Monday , when prosecutors announced that the clan's most flamboyant member faces charges of involvement in mafia-style corruption.
  • (5) This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a five-time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn’t want him in Mexico.
  • (6) Each of these reactions can increase the perception of chest pain, contributing to a vicious cycle that exacerbates both the chest pain and the anxiety.
  • (7) This vicious circle should be broken rather by finding optimal conditions than by a middle course determined by experimental requirements, economical frames and general notions about what may be good for the animal.
  • (8) In spite of the relatively large sample and the given number of variables the problem of the vicious circle might occur.
  • (9) Recent data are cited for the proposition that these changes constitute a closed pathogenetic concatenation creating a vicious circle.
  • (10) When there is upheaval within China’s own borders – riots, protests, vicious political power struggles – hardly a sniff of it will be found in the pages of the country’s heavily-controlled press.
  • (11) According to the International Crisis Group , tensions within and between the two major political parties, competing claims to the presidency between northern and Niger Delta politicians and along religious lines, along with inadequate preparations by the electoral commission and apparent bias by security agencies, suggest the country is heading toward a volatile and vicious electoral contest.
  • (12) A vicious circle with the increased resistance as the key factor can be identified.
  • (13) This vicious cycle could be interrupted by segmental epidural anesthesia with procaine as well as by blockade of sympathoexcitation at the central nervous level with clonidine in anesthetized dogs.
  • (14) This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims – and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family.” Wood was executed for shooting to death Debra Dietz, his former girlfriend, and her father, Eugene Dietz, in Tucson in 1989.
  • (15) Spicer, who so viciously attacked the press on Saturday, had to hurriedly walk back the comments of his boss when Trump, during an interview with the Washington Post before the inauguration, promised “insurance for everybody”.
  • (16) Using mathematical models of the population dynamics of T helper cells, HIV and other pathogens we address three facets of the interactions between HIV and other pathogens: enhanced HIV replication due to immune stimulation by other pathogens; modified immune control of other pathogens due to immunosuppression by HIV; and the vicious circle formed by positive feedback between these two effects.
  • (17) Since the initially peaceful demonstrations against his regime began more than three years ago, he has proved himself, by turns, foolish, craven and vicious.
  • (18) He said US prisons were tough and safe enough to handle the most vicious al-Qaida terrorist suspects now held at Guantánamo.
  • (19) When Cruise announced last October that he was suing Bauer, his lawyer, Bert Fields, described the claim that the actor had deserted his daughter as a “vicious lie”.
  • (20) Meanwhile, people in poor countries are already battling its vicious storms.