brute

1 having or showing the desire to inflict severe pain and suffering on others the brute attacks on innocent civilians had taken the war to a whole new level Synonyms atrocious, barbaric, barbarous, brutal, cruel, butcherly, fiendish, heartless, inhuman, inhumane, sadistic, savage, truculent, vicious, wantonRelated Words hard-hearted, ironhearted, merciless, pitiless, ruthless, stonyhearted, unfeeling; fell, ferocious, grim; bloodthirsty, cutthroat, murderous, sanguinary, sanguine; catty, despiteful, hateful, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, mean, nasty, spiteful, vindictive; draconian, draconic, hardhanded, harsh, heavy-handed, oppressiveNear Antonyms tender, warm, warmhearted; charitable, clement, lenient, merciful, pitying; pacific, peaceable, peacefulAntonyms benign, benignant, compassionate, good-hearted, humane, kind, kindhearted, sympathetic, tenderhearted

2 having or showing the nature and appetites of a lower animal a man of brute instinct, he deals with conflict the only way he knows how—by physical force Synonyms animalistic, beastly, brutal, bestial, brutish, feral, ferine, subhuman, swinishRelated Words animal, bodily, carnal, corporal, corporeal, fleshly, physical, sensual; barbaric, barbarous, cruel, heartless, inhumane, sadistic, savage, vicious, wanton; coarse, crass, crude, gross, ill-bred, lowbred, rude, uncouth, uncultivated, uncultured, unrefined, vulgarNear Antonyms chivalrous, elevated, gallant, great, greathearted, high, high-minded, lofty, lordly, magnanimous, noble, sublime; angelic (or angelical), spiritual; beneficent, benevolent, benignant, compassionate, good-hearted, kind, kindhearted, kindly, softhearted, tenderhearted; cultivated, cultured, genteel, polished, refined, well-bred