cruelty

noun

Etymology: From Middle English cruelte, from Old French crualté (French cruauté), from Latin crudelitas. By surface analysis, cruel + -ty.

1. An indifference to suffering or pleasure in inflicting suffering.

   “Fear of their cargo bred a savage cruelty into the crew. One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made each of the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused with the same torture. Such incidents were not rare.”

   “YSL, as he is often called, is equally capable of casual, aristocratic cruelty and earthy, spontaneous tenderness, and when you study his face it can be hard to distinguish boredom from rapture.”

2. A cruel act.

   “The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!”

   “Gay songwriter behind bars! Needs sincere letter to help ease the tension from cruelties inside the joint.”