barbarous
To be barbarous is to be vicious and cruel or simply uncivilized. Wearing a leopard-pelt skirt and swatting at people with a wooden club is barbarous, and so is eating spaghetti with your hands.
Barbarous can describe a terrible, savage act, like mass murder or torture, but it can also describe people who are uncultured. It sounds better if you say it in a British accent. If a tribe of people who knew nothing about the modern world were discovered, they would be considered barbarous. To many, living without electricity seems barbarous. Barbarous is the opposite of refined and cultured.
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(of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
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primitive in customs and culturesynonyms:
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Vocabulary lists containing barbarous
After a shipwreck, Rainsford thinks he's safe when he washes ashore a mysterious island — but once he meets the eccentric General Zaroff, he realizes his problems have just begun. Read the full text here.
The full title of this declaration includes a focus on citizenship, and it was published two years after the declaration of rights for men and immediately after the National Assembly of France rejected a proposal to extend the rights to women. With an ironic tone, the writer and activist Olympe de Gouges dedicated it to Marie Antoinette, who -- as a woman -- was not seen as an equal. And, as a queen, she did nothing to promote gender equality (yet she was eventually given a trial and death sentence equal to that of King Louis XVI). While a postscript and form for a social contract are also included, the main structure and contents of this declaration parallel and parody its male counterpart. Compare these lists to hear the echoes. E-text available here. Here are links to our lists on rights: The Declaration of Independence, Declaration of the Rights of Man, Declaration of the Rights of Woman, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Master these terms that will help you describe grinches, grouches, bullies, and other unpleasant people.