brute

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Toko sat immovable, with his rifle levelled at the lion's head, and just as the brute was about to make its fatal spring he fired.

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Definitions (25)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (9)

  1. noun An animal; a beast.
  2. noun A brutal, crude, or insensitive person.
  3. adjective Of or relating to beasts; animal: "None of the brute creation requires more than food and shelter” (Henry David Thoreau).

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (10)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (50)

  • If you are better off than you were in 1848, you owe it principally to those laws of political economy (as they are called), which I call the brute natural accidents of supply and demand, or to the exertions which have been made by upright men of the very classes whom demagogues taught you to consider as your natural enemies. —  Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet
  • Nobly my gallant horse strove to save me; he required not the whip or spur; I gave him a word of encouragement, and the animal, — which we term a brute, — returned a low, whining neigh, as if he wished me to understand that he knew my danger, and would all in his power. —  The Swamp Doctor's Adventures
  • The thought of actually putting an arrow into this Iowa brute was almost more than he could think about.
  • Toko sat immovable, with his rifle levelled at the lion's head, and just as the brute was about to make its fatal spring he fired. —  Adventures in Africa By an African Trader
  • Just as the brute was about to give his victim a blow that would have sent him into the gutter, he felt his arm grasped in a detaining hold and heard a commanding voice,--"Stop He turned with increased fury upon this meddler, but his other wrist was caught and held in a vise-like grip. —  Americans All Stories of American Life of To-Day
 

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From Middle English, nonhuman, from Old French brut, from Latin brūtus, stupid; see gwerə-1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French brut, feminine brute, = Spanish Portuguese Italian bruto, from Latin brutus, heavy, unwieldy, stupid, insensible, unreasonable; particularly applied in later L. to the lower animals.
 

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/brut/
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