brute

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See also: Brute and brüte

English

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Wikipedia

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle French brut, from Old French brut, from Latin brūtus (“dull, stupid, insensible”), an Oscan loanword, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂us (“heavy”). Cognate with Ancient Greek βαρύς (barús), Persian گران (gerân) and Sanskrit गुरु (gurú) (English guru).

Adjective

brute (comparative more brute, superlative most brute)

  1. Without reason or intelligence (of animals).
    a brute beast
  2. Characteristic of unthinking animals; senseless, unreasoning (of humans).
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:
      A creature […] not prone / And brute as other creatures, but endued / With sanctity of reason.
  3. Unconnected with intelligence or thought; purely material, senseless.
    the brute earth; the brute powers of nature
  4. Crude, unpolished.
  5. Strong, blunt, and spontaneous.
    I punched him with brute force.
  6. Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless.
    brute violence
Derived terms
Translations

Noun

brute (plural brutes)

  1. (archaic) An animal seen as being without human reason; a senseless beast.
    • 1714, Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees:
      they laid before them how unbecoming it was the Dignity of such sublime Creatures to be sollicitous about gratifying those Appetites, which they had in common with Brutes, and at the same time unmindful of those higher qualities that gave them the preeminence over all visible Beings.
    • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, , →OCLC, part I, page 218:
      ‘That animal has a charmed life,’ he said; ‘but you can say this only of brutes in this country. No man - you apprehend me? - no man here bears a charmed life.’
    • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.17:
      But if he lives badly, he will, in the next life, be a woman; if he (or she) persists in evil-doing, he (or she) will become a brute, and go on through transmigrations until at last reason conquers.
  2. A person with the characteristics of an unthinking animal; a coarse or brutal person.
    One of them was a hulking brute of a man, heavily tattooed and with a hardened face that practically screamed "I just got out of jail."
    • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, →OCLC:
      She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had thought to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.
  3. (film, television) A kind of powerful spotlight.
    • 1976, A. Arthur Englander, Paul Petzold, Filming for Television, page 191:
      For a scene like the Highgate exhumation night sequence suitable equipment would consist of: two brutes on Molevators, three 10 K lights also on Molevators and, for good measure, two 5 Ks, four 2 Ks, two pups (1000 W), two North lights […]
    • 1999, Des Lyver, Graham Swainson, Basics of Video Lighting, page 103:
      At the other extreme, with limitless budgets all they have to do is dream up amazing lighting rigs to be constructed and operated by the huge team of gaffers and sparks, with their generators, discharge lights, flags, gobos and brutes.
  4. (archaic, UK, Cambridge University slang) One who has not yet matriculated.
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

brute (third-person singular simple present brutes, present participle bruting, simple past and past participle bruted)

  1. (transitive) To shape (diamonds) by grinding them against each other.

Etymology 2

Verb

brute (third-person singular simple present brutes, present participle bruting, simple past and past participle bruted)

  1. Obsolete spelling of bruit

Anagrams

Dutch

Pronunciation

Adjective

brute

  1. inflection of bruut:
    1. masculine/feminine singular attributive
    2. definite neuter singular attributive
    3. plural attributive

French

Pronunciation

Adjective

brute f sg

  1. feminine singular of brut

Noun

brute f (plural brutes)

  1. brute (animal lacking in reason, intelligence and sensibility)
  2. person without reason, person devoid of reason
  3. bully (one who imposes his will on others using violence)

Related terms

Further reading

Anagrams

Italian

Adjective

brute f pl

  1. feminine plural of bruto

Anagrams

Latin

Adjective

brūte

  1. vocative masculine singular of brūtus
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