sav´age|ness

sav|age «SAV ihj», adjective, noun, verb, -aged, -ag|ing.

–adj.

1. not civilized; barbarous: »

savage customs. Gaudy colors please a savage taste. ... the barriers, which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth (Edward Gibbon).

SYNONYM(S): primitive.

2. fierce; cruel; ready to fight; brutal: »

a savage temper. The savage lion attacked the hunter.

SYNONYM(S): ferocious. See syn. under fierce. (Cf. ↑fierce)

3. wild or rugged; uncultivated: »

He likes savage mountain scenery.

4. undomesticated; untamed.

5. a) furiously angry; enraged: »

Come, Jasper, you need not look so savage (W. S. Hayward).

b) rough or unsparing in speech: »

He turned and gave a short savage order to one of his men (Graham Greene).

6. Archaic. (of a plant) uncultivated: »

St. Foin…grows naturally savage without sowing or tillage (Jethro Tull).

7. Archaic. rude; unpolished: »

To savage music, wilder as it grows (Shelley).

–n.

1. a member of a people in the lowest stage of development or civilization; uncivilized person: »

nations of savages…barbarous and brutish to the last degree (Daniel Defoe).

2. a fierce, brutal, or cruel person: »

Witness the patient ox…Driv'n to the slaughter…while the savage at his heels Laughs at the frantic suff'rer's fury (William Cowper).

3. a person ignorant or neglectful of the rules of good manners.

4. Obsolete. a wild animal: »

When the grim savage [the lion], to his rifled den Too late returning, snuffs the track of men (Alexander Pope).

–v.t.

1. (of an animal) to attack viciously, especially with the teeth.

2. to assail in a ferocious manner; subject to savage attack: »

The current vogue in satire…is to savage every father figure in sight (Manchester Guardian)

╂[< Old French sauvage < Late Latin salvāticus, for Latin silvāticus < silva forest]

–sav´age|ly, adverb.

–sav´age|ness, noun.