nasty, brutish, and short

adjective

Of a hypothetical state of human life, without a government or society, and marked by constant fear, violence, and insecurity.

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Meanings

adjective
  1. derogatoryidiomaticOf a hypothetical state of human life, without a government or society, and marked by constant fear, violence, and insecurity.

    America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 ([…]): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

    2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, archived from the original on 05 Sep 2024, page 11

Origin

Mentioned in 1651 in Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes: No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

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Cite this entry
APA

nasty, brutish, and short. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nasty%2C%20brutish%2C%20and%20short

MLA

“nasty, brutish, and short.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nasty%2C%20brutish%2C%20and%20short. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nasty, brutish, and short,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nasty%2C%20brutish%2C%20and%20short.

Source: nasty, brutish, and short on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.