brute
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: bro͞ot
ipa: /bɹuːt/
ipa: /bɹut/
rhymes: -uːt
Forms: form: brutes
Etymology: 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).
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1714, Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees:
text: ‘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.’
ref: 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:
text: “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.”
ref: 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 96:
text: 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.
ref: 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.17:
glosses: An animal seen as being without human reason; a senseless beast.
examples: text: 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."
text: 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.
ref: 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:
glosses: A person with the characteristics of an unthinking animal; a coarse or brutal person, particularly one who is dim-witted.
examples: text: 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 […]
ref: 1976, A. Arthur Englander, Paul Petzold, Filming for Television, page 191:
text: 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.
ref: 1999, Des Lyver, Graham Swainson, Basics of Video Lighting, page 103:
topics: broadcasting
film
media
television
glosses: A kind of powerful spotlight.
qualifier: Cambridge University slang
glosses: One who has not yet matriculated.
Derived terms: brutal
brutality
brutedom
brute force
brute for punishment
brutelike
brutely
bruteness
bruter
brutesome
brutify
brutish
brutism
brutist
imbrute
unbrute