▪ I. brute, a. and n.1
(bruːt)
Also 7 bruit(e.
[a. F. brut, fem. brute:—L. brūtus heavy, dull, irrational (Sp. bruto, It. bruto n.). Some of the senses are probably directly from, or at least influenced by, the Latin.]
A. adj. (Now often an attrib. use of the n.)
1. Of animals: Wanting in reason or understanding; chiefly in phrases brute beasts, the brute creation, = the ‘lower animals’.
| c 1460–70 Bk. Quintessence 11 Fro fleisch of alle brute beestis. 1494 Fabyan vii. ccxxii. 246 Great moreyne fell vpon brute bestes. 1580 Lupton Siquila 55 More senselesse, than the senselest or brutest beast in the world. 1611 Bible Pref. 1 Bruit-beasts led with sensualitie. 1613 Withers Abuses Stript i. v. in Juvenilia (1633) 42 Viler than the brutest creature. 1667 Milton P.L. x. 495 The brute Serpent in whose shape Man I deceav'd. 1703 Rowe Fair Penit. iii. i, Whose bounteous Hand feeds the whole Brute Creation. 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. i. §13 To degrade human-kind to a level with brute beasts. 1832 Downes Lett. fr. Cont. Countries I. 46 Not a being, human or brute, appeared. 1849 W. Irving Mahomed x. (1853) 59 The very brute animals were charmed to silence. |
2. a. Of human beings, their actions, and attributes: Brute-like, brutish; dull, senseless, stupid; unintelligent, unreasoning, uninstructed; sensual.
| 1535 T. Bedyl in Strype Eccl. Mem. I. ii. App. lv, I suppose many of the curates to be so brute, that they would read or speake every word, as it was written. a 1618 Sylvester Mem. Mortalitie ii. xxxix, Man (alas!) is bruter than a Brute. 1641 Milton Ch. Govt. i. (1851) 100 Their owne brute inventions. 1645 ― Tetrach. (1851) 159 Which should preserve it in love and reason, and difference it from a brute conjugality. 1812 Southey in Q. Rev. VIII. 321 The deplorable doctrines of brute materialism. 1870 Bowen Logic viii. 238 A black skin is not an invariable sign of a brute intellect. |
b. Rough, rude, wanting in sensibilty.
| 1555 Fardle Facions ii. x. 210 Their behauour was in the beginning very brute. 1645 Milton Colast. Wks. (1851) 373 As to this brute Libel. a 1744 Pope (J.) The brute philosopher, who ne'er has proved The joy of loving or of being loved. |
3. a. Of things: Not possessing or connected with reason, intelligence, or sensation; irrational, unconscious, senseless; merely material;
esp. in
brute matter,
brute force.
| 1540 Morysine tr. Vives' Introd. Wisd. B v b, Nature, reason, and comlynes commaunde the sayde body to be subjecte as a thynge brute, to that that dyeth never. 1611 J. Guillim Heraldry iii. v. 97 By brute natures I understand all essences..that are meerely void of life. 1646 Evance Noble Ord. 37 Jehu, and Nebucadnezar weare but brute instruments to worke Gods purposes. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. viii. 259 Brute inanimate Matter. 1712 Blackmore Creation i. (1736) 6 Who..believe That the brute earth unguided should embrace The only..proper place. 1736 Butler Anal. i. iii. 82 A tendency to prevail over brute force. 1836–7 Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. (1877) I. ii. 36 The necessary results of a brute mechanism. 1860 Adler Fauriel's Prov. Poetry xx. 455 Our Sanctuaries are nothing but brute stone, and still they weep. 1866 Kingsley Herew. viii. 141 The land has been changed by the brute forces of nature. |
† b. Of inarticulate sound.
c. Of thunder:
= brutish 4.
Obs.| 1642 Rogers Naaman 62 The workes alone are a brute sound, and have no tongue in them. 1656 Cowley Davideis iv. (1669) 144 They [the curses] with brute sound, dissolv'd into the air. Ibid. 154 (note), Brute, That signified nothing. So Thunders from whence the Ancients could collect no Prognostications, were called Brute Thunders. |
4. a. Of surfaces: Rugged; unpolished.
rare.
| 1627 Drayton Agincourt (1748) 7 The shire whose surface seems most brute, Darby. 1804 Southey in Ann. Rev. II. 527 The value of the brute diamond. a 1861 T. Winthrop John Brent (1883) i. 6 The precious metal was to the brute mineral in the proportion of perhaps a hundred pin-heads to the ton. |
b. brute fact, a crude, isolated, or unexplained fact.
| 1874 G. H. Lewes Probl. Life & Mind I. v. 296 Science looks through the brute fact, to contemplate the Abstraction which gives it connection, significance. 1879 W. James in Mind IV. 329 We discriminate between brute fact and explained fact. 1926 A. E. Taylor Plato xvii. 455 Science..is always forced to retain some element of brute fact, the merely given, in its account of things. 1957 Economist 21 Sept. 931/1 He refuses to accommodate the brute facts of historical development within a convenient but artificial pattern. |
B. n. 1. a. One of the lower animals as distinguished from man: a brute creature.
| 1611 Heywood Gold. Age i. i. Wks. 1874 III. 15 Worse then a bruit, for bruits preserue their own. 1667 Milton P.L. viii. 441 My Image not imparted to the Brute. 1712 Pope Spect. No. 408 ¶4 Man seems to be placed as the middle Link between Angels and Brutes. 1724 Watts Logic (1736) 91 Life..attributed to Plants, to Brutes, and to Men. a 1876 J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. I. i. iv. 164 Brutes..cannot invent, cannot progress. |
b. The animal nature in man. (
Cf. beast 1 c.)
| 1784 Burns Stanzas in Prosp. Death 15 Again exalt the brute and sink the man. |
2. A man resembling a brute in want of intelligence, cruelty, coarseness, sensuality, etc. Now (
colloq.) often merely a strong term of reprobation or aversion, and sometimes extended to things.
| 1670 Cotton Espernon iii. xi. 538 These Bruits incapable of Reason, were exasperated at the very name of Punishment. 1719 De Foe Crusoe (1840) II. xiii. 278 The great fat brute thought it below him. 1722 ― Relig. Courtsh. i. iii. (1840) 117, I was a brute for living in that horrid manner. 1752 Chesterfield Lett. III. ccxcii. 340 That northern Brute, the King of Sweden! 1766 Anstey New Bath Guide viii. 49 Their Husbands, those Brutes..swear they will never set Foot here again. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. I. xii. 224 The brute of a cigar required relighting. 1878 R. Broughton Cometh up as Flower viii. 80 He would be a pretty brute. 1885 Mrs. Oliphant Madam I. v. 67 Women can't try their husbands for being brutes. |
C. attrib. and
comb., as
brute-man,
brute-minded,
brute-mindedness,
brute-shadow,
brute-worship;
† brute-beastish,
brute-like adj. and
adv.;
brute-bastille (
nonce-wd.), a menagerie;
brute-buried a., buried like a brute.
| 1845 Hood Monkey Mart. v, To look around upon this *brute-bastille. |
| 1530 Palsgr. 307/1 *Brute beestysshe..bruste. |
| 1822 Hood Lycus the Cent. 247 Let me utterly be *Brute-buried. |
| 1813 Byron Giaour 52 Man..should..trample, *brute-like, o'er each flower. 1862 Lytton Str. Story II. 47 His brute-like want of sympathy with his kind. |
| 1852 Tupper Proverb. Philos. 296 Hath..the *brute-man more than instinct? |
| 1843 Carlyle Past & Pr. 271 Thou findest Ignorance, Stupidity, *Brute-mindedness, etc. |
| 1822 Hood Lycus the Cent. 123 Lest a *brute shadow should grow at my feet. |
| 1738 Warburton Div. Legat. I. 284 The Original of *Brute-worship. |
▪ II. brute obs. form of
bruit n. and v.