brute: [15] The primordial meaning of brute appears to be ‘heavy’. It comes from Latin brūtus ‘heavy’, and it has been speculated that it is related to Latin grāvis ‘heavy’ (from which English gets grave, gravity, and grieve). In Latin the sense ‘heavy’ had already progressed to ‘stupid’, and it later developed to ‘of the lower animals’. It was with this meaning that the word reached English via French. Connotations of ‘cruelty’ do not begin to appear until the 17th century. Brut meaning ‘very dry’ in relation to champagne is a late 19th-century borrowing of the French adjectival form brut, literally ‘rough’.
brute (adj.)
early 15c., "of or belonging to animals," from Middle French brut "coarse, brutal, raw, crude," from Latin brutus "heavy, dull, stupid," an Oscan word, from PIE root *gwere- (2) "heavy" (see grave (adj.)). Before reaching English the meaning expanded to "of the lower animals." Used of human beings from 1530s.
brute (n.)
1610s, from brute (adj.).
雙語例句
1. The burly brute swaggered forward, towering over me, and shouted.
五大三粗的惡漢趾高氣揚地走過來，居高臨下地對我咆哮著。
來自柯林斯例句
2. Boxing is a test of skill and technique, rather than brute strength.
拳擊考驗的是技能和技術(shù)，不是蠻力。
來自柯林斯例句
3. Custer was an idiot and a brute and he deserved his fate.