brute

comparative more brute · superlative most brute

1. Without reason or intelligence (of animals).First known use 15th c.

   a brute beast

2. Characteristic of unthinking animals; senseless, unreasoning (of humans).First known use 16th c.

   A creature […] not prone / And brute as other creatures, but endued / With sanctity of reason.

   1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

3. Unconnected with intelligence or thought; purely material, senseless.First known use 16th c.

   the brute earth; the brute powers of nature

4. Crude, unpolished.First known use 17th c.

   a great brute farmer from Liddesdale

   1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC

5. Strong, blunt, and spontaneous; being purely physical in nature.

   I got the door open through brute force.

   3 more examples

   The two Gladiators, Kreugas and Damoxenos, a subject from Pausanias, is another work in the same grand style. There is a want of nobility both in the countenances and forms of the combatants, and the expression of brute strength is too little relieved by that of courage arid heroism. The gentlemen of the fancy too find fault with the attitudes, as contrary to the rules of boxing ; a fault to be excused in consideration of the want in Rome of an establishment like Fives' court in London.

   1820, Floyd Lavern Darrow, The North American Review, Cummings and Hilliard, page 380

   The rest of the massive figure gives one idea, strength in perfect repose ; the countenance, in its varied expression, is the soul of the whole. This is the more evident, because the expression in the human-headed lions and bulls is precisely the same. The animal-symbol must have been altogether subordinate, because it varies, without varying in the least that expression of mind which arrests the gazer. When brute force is meant to be represented, it is figured in all its fierceness, as in the colossal lion with vast wide-open jaws, found in one of the temples at Nimrud. It expresses devouring fierceness and rage, and these alone. Instead of that calm human head, are the vast jaws outstretched, as if ready to devour, and purposely disproportioned for magnitude to the rest of the colossal figure, because the object was to express terrible fierceness.

   1868, Edward Bouverie Pusey, Daniel the Prophet, Nine Lectures, James Parker, Printing-Press of the Devonport Society, page 114

   When Mr. Chalmers refused to O. K. the sacrifice of all-round performance to mere brute might, he saved the owner of the 3400 r. p. m.

   1916, Floyd Lavern Darrow, Kansas Farmer, Kansas Farmer Company, pages 136-137

6. Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless, without intelligence or reason.

   brute violence

plural brutes

1. archaicAn animal seen as being without human reason; a senseless beast.First known use 17th c.

   ‘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.’

   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

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   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.

   1714, Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees

   “I would then never have known what minute, or by whom, I was to be attacked next. But the brutes are more chivalrous than man—they do not stoop to cowardly intrigue.”

   1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg, published March 1915, →OCLC

   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.

   1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy […], London: George Allen and Unwin, →OCLC

2. A person with the characteristics of an unthinking animal; a coarse or brutal person, particularly one who is dim-witted.First known use 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."

   2 more examples

   She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had expected 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.

   1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 2

   But as long as scholars viewed Neanderthals as simple brutes barely scraping by in ice age Europe, it was easy to give Sapiens the benefit of the doubt.

   2020 November 7, Yuval Noah Harari, “At Home With Our Ancient Cousins, the Neanderthals”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2021

3. broadcastingA kind of powerful spotlight.

   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.

   1999, Des Lyver, Graham Swainson, Basics of Video Lighting, page 103

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   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 […]

   1976, A. Arthur Englander, Paul Petzold, Filming for Television, page 191

4. UKarchaicCambridge University slangOne who has not yet matriculated.

present singular third person brutes · participle present bruting · participle past bruted · past bruted

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

present singular third person brutes · participle present bruting · participle past bruted · past bruted

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of bruit.