From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbrutalbru‧tal /ˈbruːtl/ ●○○ adjective 1 VIOLENTvery cruel and violentbrutal murder/attack/assault a brutal attack on a defenceless old man a brutal man► see thesaurus at cruel, violent2 UNKINDnot pleasant and not sensitive to people’s feelings He replied with brutal honesty. —brutally adverb He was brutally murdered. If I’m brutally honest, I don’t like her dress.
Examples from the Corpus
brutal• They were officially internees, rather than prisoners, and life, although monotonous and full of deprivation, was not brutal.• Some of the prison guards were brutal and corrupt.• The police are searching for the brutal attacker of a 98-year old woman.• a brutal dictator• Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak have a brutal job.• It was the old mountain teaching another brutal lesson, that the mountain and its weather does not forgive a mistake.• Carter was jailed for the brutal murder of a young mother of three.• Three men were charged with the brutal murder.• There was a brutal note in his voice that puzzled me.• As Crabbe describes him, Grimes begins as a brutal product of harsh circumstances.• It was so brutal, so sudden.• The game had been brutal, the aggression often boiling over into mini-battles on the pitch between opposing players.• That's an extreme example of the volatility, but it shows how brutal the market has been, analysts said.• The brutal truth is that babies are starving to death there.brutal murder/attack/assault• Detectives spoke of their disgust at the brutal attack.• Father finds son on ground after brutal attack.• Mr Purohit, a leading figure in the Hindu community, had been murdered, in a brutal attack.• No one knew whether the civil jury would hold the former football star liable for two brutal murders.• The same reports say that intelligence ministry microphones planted inside their Tehran flat picked up the sound of their brutal murder.brutal honesty• And the brutal honesty of his observations is sometimes lost in the attempt to make the words themselves beautiful.• Will the erstwhile crimson-lipped peroxide devil-doll, the very anti-Madonna, be raging with paranoia and brutal honesty on her next record? 