Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. An animal; a beast.
- n. A brutal, crude, or insensitive person.
- adj. Of or relating to beasts; animal: "None of the brute creation requires more than food and shelter” ( Henry David Thoreau).
- adj. Characteristic of a brute, especially:
- adj. Entirely physical: brute force.
- adj. Lacking or showing a lack of reason or intelligence: a brute impulse.
- adj. Savage; cruel: brute coercion.
- adj. Unremittingly severe: was driven to steal food through brute necessity.
- adj. Coarse; brutish.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Strong, blunt, and spontaneous
- n. One who has not yet matriculated.
- v. Obsolete spelling of bruit.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Not having sensation; senseless; inanimate; unconscious; without intelligence or volition.
- adj. Not possessing reason, irrational; unthinking.
- adj. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of, a brute beast. Hence: Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless.
- adj. Having the physical powers predominating over the mental; coarse; unpolished; unintelligent.
- adj. Rough; uncivilized; unfeeling.
- n. An animal destitute of human reason; any animal not human; esp. a quadruped; a beast.
- n. A brutal person; a savage in heart or manners; as unfeeling or coarse person.
- transitive v. To report; to bruit.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Senseless; unconscious.
- Wanting reason; animal; not human: as, a brute beast.
- Characteristic of animals; of brutal character or quality.
- Blunt or dull of sentiment; without sensibility; rough; uncivilized; insensible.
- Not associated with intelligence or intellectual effort; unintelligent; irrational.
- Harsh; crude.
- Synonyms Brute, Brutish, Brutal, Beastly, Bestial. Brute is the most general of these words, and remains nearest to the distinguishing difference between man and beast, irrationality: as, brute force. Brutish is especially uncultured, stupid, groveling: as, brutes and still more brutish men. Brutal implies cruelty or lack of feeling: as, brutal language or conduct. Beastly expresses that which is altogether unworthy of a man, especially that which is filthy and disgusting in conduct or manner of life. Bestial is applied chiefly to that which is carnal, sensual, lascivious: as, bestial vices or appetites.
- n. A beast, especially one of the higher quadrupeds; any animal as distinguished from man.
- n. A brutal person; a savage in disposition or manners; a low-bred, unfeeling person.
- n. Nautical, a yacht that to some extent sacrifices fineness of lines to fullness of form, so that great initial stability and sail-carrying power are obtained.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a cruelly rapacious person
- adj. resembling a beast; showing lack of human sensibility
- n. a living organism characterized by voluntary movement
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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At certain intervals his mania came upon him, the strange hallucination of something four-footed, the persistent fancy that the brute in him had now grown so large, so insatiable, that it had taken everything, even to his very self, his own identity -- that he had literally _become the brute_.
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"How I hate the man who talks about the 'brute creation,' with an ugly emphasis on _brute_ ....
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His whole appearance at such times excited disgust in that lady, and she would leave his presence as soon as possible, using even the term brute to express her disgust; Matthias too, would attempt to rouse him on such occasions, to a sense of impropriety, by exclaiming, "Why, Elijah! what are you saying, what are you about?" while other persons would remove his hand, and hold him.
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The retired, four-star army general who has taken over as secretary of veterans affairs is vowing what he calls a brute force effort to reform his department.
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He said any new fight would require what he called brute force.
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He said, any new fight would require what he called brute force.
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We discern this fact with curious clearness when we look at other people, but it is nowhere quite so evident as in what we call the brute creation.
Schwartz: A History From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
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"I don't know what you call the brute," said Ukridge.
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This latter reaches far down into the levels of what we call brute life.
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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
bilby commented on the word brute
Et tu, cruel rapaciousness.
October 25, 2009