1 fierce and violent; causing great harm:
savage dogs * She had been badly hurt in what police described as 'a savage attack'. * savage public spending cuts
2 involving very strong criticism:
The article was a savage attack on the government's record.
3 [onlybeforenoun] (old-fashioned, !!!) an offensive way of referring to groups of people or customs that are considered to be simple and not highly developed
SYNPRIMITIVE:
a savage tribe
savagely adverb:
savagely attacked / criticized * 'No!' he snarled savagely.
noun (old-fashioned, !!!) an offensive word for a person who belongs to a tribe that is simple and not developed:
the development of the human race from primitive savages * He described the terrorist attack as the work of savages (= cruel and violent people).
verb [VN] [usuallypassive]
1 (of an animal) to attack sb violently, causing serious injury:
She was savaged to death by a bear.
2 (written) to criticize sb/sth severely:
Her latest novel has been savaged by the critics.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for savage is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is savage a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, savage is tagged as adjective.
Does savage appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — savage appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
