Collocations for cruel - adj.

be, seem, sound
become

extremely, fairly, very, etc.
an extremely cruel regime

incredibly, unspeakably
a little, slightly, etc.
deliberately
unnecessarily

to
I can't stand people who are cruel to animals.

Cruel is used with these nouns:
blow, deception, eye, fate, hoax, irony, joke, laugh, laughter, luck, master, parody, punishment, reality, sport, streak, taunt, treatment, trick, truth, twist, tyrant, world