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cru·el·ty n pl -ties1 a: an intentional or criminally negligent act that causes pain and sufferingcruelty to childrenb: mistreatment or neglect that causes pain and suffering compare abuse◇ Cruelty is an aggravating circumstance to a crime (as murder).2: a spouse's conduct that endangers life or health or causes mental suffering or fear – called also cruel and inhuman treatment;◇ Cruelty is a ground for divorce.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam-Webster. 1996.
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I
noun
atrocity, austerity, barbarity, barbarousness, bloodthirstiness, brutality, brutalness, brutishness, crudelitas, cruel act, cruel conduct, deliberate malice, deviltry, enmity, ferity, ferociousness, ferocity, fierceness, harshness, heartlessness, ill-nature, ill-usage, ill-will, infliction of pain, inhumanity, intolerance, malice, malice aforethought, malice prepense, maliciousness, malignance, malignancy, malignity, mercilessness, oppression, outrage, persecution, rancor, relentlessness, remorselessness, ruthlessness, savageness, savagery, severity, spite, sternness, torture, tyranny, uncompassionateness, unkindness, unremorsefulness, viciousness, victimization, violence
associated concepts: cruelty of treatment, cruelty to animals, cruelty to children, extreme cruelty, habitual cruelty, mental cruelty, unneccessary cruelty
II
index
bestiality, brutality, inconsideration, mischief, oppression, severity
Burton's Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006
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Any act of inflicting unnecessary emotional or physical pain. Cruelty or mental cruelty is the most frequently used fault ground for divorce because as a practical matter, courts will accept minor wrongs or disagreements as sufficient evidence of cruelty to justify the divorce. Now that every state has some version of no-fault divorce, cruelty is rarely used as a ground for divorce.Category: Divorce & Family Law → Divorce, Child Support & Custody
Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary. Gerald N. Hill, Kathleen Thompson Hill. 2009.
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n. As a ground for divorce, the intentional and malicious infliction of physical or psychological abuse by a married person upon his or her spouse that endangers or severely impairs the spouse's life or physical or mental well-being or creates a reasonable apprehension in the spouse's mind of physical or mental harm. The extent of abuse that a spouse is expected to tolerate varies state to state, but a single act of cruelty is normally not enough to constitute grounds for divorce.See also abuse.
Webster's New World Law Dictionary. Susan Ellis Wild. 2000.
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The deliberate and malicious infliction of mental or physical pain upon persons or animals.
Dictionary from West's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005.
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The deliberate and malicious infliction of mental or physical pain upon persons or animals.
Short Dictionary of (mostly American) Legal Terms and Abbreviations.
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n.the intentional and malicious infliction of physical or psychological pain on another. In most states various forms of "cruelty," "extreme cruelty," and/or "mental cruelty" used to be grounds for divorce if proved. This brought about a lot of unnecessary (and sometimes exaggerated or false) derogatory (nasty) testimony about the other party. There was little standardization of what constituted sufficient "cruelty" to prove a divorce should be granted. Starting in the 1960s "no fault" divorce (sometimes now called "dissolution") began to replace contentious divorces in most states, so that incompatibility became good enough grounds for granting a divorce.
Law dictionary. EdwART. 2013.
