brute
See also: Brute and brüte
English
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bro͞ot, IPA(key): /bɹuːt/
Audio (RP) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /bɹut/
Audio (GA) (file) - Rhymes: -uːt
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)
- Without reason or intelligence (of animals). [from 15th c.]
- a brute beast
- Characteristic of unthinking animals; senseless, unreasoning (of humans). [from 16th c.]
- 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:
- A creature […] not prone / And brute as other creatures, but endued / With sanctity of reason.
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- Unconnected with intelligence or thought; purely material, senseless. [from 16th c.]
- the brute earth; the brute powers of nature
- Crude, unpolished. [from 17th c.]
- 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], OCLC 742335644:
- a great brute farmer from Liddesdale
-
- Strong, blunt, and spontaneous.
- I punched him with brute force.
- Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless.
- brute violence
Derived terms
- brute fact
- brute strength
Translations
of animals: without reason or intelligence
|
of humans: senseless, unreasoning
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unconnected with intelligence or thought; purely material, senseless
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crude, unpolished
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strong, blunt and spontaneous
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brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless
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Noun
brute (plural brutes)
- (archaic) An animal seen as being without human reason; a senseless beast. [from 17th c.]
- 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 1042815524, 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.
- 1714, Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees:
- A person with the characteristics of an unthinking animal; a coarse or brutal person. [from 17th c.]
- 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 40817384:
- 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.
- (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.
- 1976, A. Arthur Englander, Paul Petzold, Filming for Television (page 191)
- (archaic, UK, Cambridge University slang) One who has not yet matriculated.
Derived terms
- brutal
- brutality
- brute force
- brute for punishment
- brutish
Translations
animal destitute of human reason
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brutal person
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Verb
brute (third-person singular simple present brutes, present participle bruting, simple past and past participle bruted)
- (transitive) To shape (diamonds) by grinding them against each other.
Verb
brute (third-person singular simple present brutes, present participle bruting, simple past and past participle bruted)
- Obsolete spelling of bruit
Anagrams
- Ubert, buret, rebut, tuber
Dutch
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Adjective
brute
- Inflected form of bruut
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bʁyt/
Audio (file)
Adjective
brute f sg
- feminine singular of brut
Noun
brute f (plural brutes)
- brute, an animal lacking in reason
- an animal lacking in intelligence and sensibility
- (By analogy) A person without reason
- One who imposes his will on others using violence - a bully
Further reading
- “brute”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
- buter, rebut, tuber
Italian
Adjective
brute f pl
- feminine plural of bruto
Anagrams
- turbe
Latin
Adjective
brūte
- vocative masculine singular of brūtus