barbarous

1. 1.

   (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering

   “a barbarous crime”

   “brutal beatings”

   “cruel tortures”

   “Stalin's roughshod treatment of the kulaks”

   “a savage slap”

   “vicious kicks”

   Synonymsbrutalcruelfellroughshodsavagevicious

   Similarinhumane
2. 2.

   primitive in customs and culture

   Similarnoncivilized

Questions about barbarous

What does barbarous mean?

barbarous means "(of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in barbarous?

barbarous has 3 syllables: bar-ba-rous. The stress falls on "bar". In IPA it is /ˈbɑɹbɚəs/.

What is another word for barbarous?

Close synonyms include brutal, cruel, fell, roughshod, savage. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is barbarous a common word?

barbarous is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.