brute

adj

1. Without reason or intelligence (of animals).

   “a brute beast”

2. Characteristic of unthinking animals; senseless, unreasoning (of humans).

   “A creature […] not prone / And brute as other creatures, but endued / With sanctity of reason.”

3. Unconnected with intelligence or thought; purely material, senseless.

   “the brute earth; the brute powers of nature”

4. Crude, unpolished.

   “a great brute farmer from Liddesdale”

5. Strong, blunt, and spontaneous; being purely physical in nature.

   “I got the door open through brute force.”

   “The two Gladiators, Kreugas and Damoxenos, a subject from Pausanias, is another work in the same grand style. There is a want of nobility both in the countenances and forms of the combatants, and the expression of brute strength is too little relieved by that of courage arid heroism. The gentlemen of the fancy too find fault with the attitudes, as contrary to the rules of boxing ; a fault to be excused in consideration of the want in Rome of an establishment like Fives' court in London.”

   “When Mr. Chalmers refused to O. K. the sacrifice of all-round performance to mere brute might, he saved the owner of the 3400 r. p. m.”

6. Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless, without intelligence or reason.

   “brute violence”

noun

1. (archaic)An animal seen as being without human reason; a senseless beast.

   “they laid before them how unbecoming it was the Dignity of such sublime Creatures to be sollicitous about gratifying those Appetites, which they had in common with Brutes, and at the same time unmindful of those higher qualities that gave them the preeminence over all visible Beings.”

   “‘That animal has a charmed life,’ he said; ‘but you can say this only of brutes in this country. No man - you apprehend me? - no man here bears a charmed life.’”

   ““I would then never have known what minute, or by whom, I was to be attacked next. But the brutes are more chivalrous than man—they do not stoop to cowardly intrigue.””

   “But if he lives badly, he will, in the next life, be a woman; if he (or she) persists in evil-doing, he (or she) will become a brute, and go on through transmigrations until at last reason conquers.”

2. A person with the characteristics of an unthinking animal; a coarse or brutal person, particularly one who is dim-witted.

   “One of them was a hulking brute of a man, heavily tattooed and with a hardened face that practically screamed "I just got out of jail."”

   “She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had expected to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven, burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.”

3. A kind of powerful spotlight.

   “For a scene like the Highgate exhumation night sequence suitable equipment would consist of: two brutes on Molevators, three 10 K lights also on Molevators and, for good measure, two 5 Ks, four 2 Ks, two pups (1000 W), two North lights […]”

   “At the other extreme, with limitless budgets all they have to do is dream up amazing lighting rigs to be constructed and operated by the huge team of gaffers and sparks, with their generators, discharge lights, flags, gobos and brutes.”

4. (UK, archaic)One who has not yet matriculated.

verb

1. (transitive)To shape (diamonds) by grinding them against each other.
2. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete spelling of bruit.