cruelty

n 1: a cruel act; a deliberate infliction of pain and suffering

[syn: {inhuman treatment}]

2: feelings of extreme heartlessness [syn: {mercilessness}, {pitilessness},

{ruthlessness}]

3: the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance

[syn: {cruelness}, {harshness}]

crufty

/kruhf'tee/ [Possibly from "crusty"] 1. Poorly built, possibly

over-complex. The {canonical} example is "This is standard

old crufty {DEC} software". In fact, one fanciful theory of

the origin of "crufty" holds that it was originally a mutation

of "crusty" applied to DEC software so old that the "s"

characters were tall and skinny, looking more like "f"

characters.

2. (Sometimes spelled "cruftie") A small crufty object (see

{frob}); often one that doesn't fit well into the scheme of

things. "A {Lisp} {property list} is a good place to store

crufties (or, collectively, {random} cruft)."

[{Jargon File}]