cruel vs grim

cruel

adj
  • Harsh; severe. 

  • Cool; awesome; neat. 

  • Intentionally causing or reveling in pain and suffering; merciless, heartless. 

adv
  • To a great degree; terribly. 

verb
  • To violently provoke (a child) in the belief that this will make them more assertive. 

  • To spoil or ruin (one's chance of success) 

grim

adj
  • Ghastly or sinister. 

  • Rigid and unrelenting. 

  • Disgusting; gross. 

  • Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding. 

verb
  • To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to. 

How often have the words cruel and grim occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )