# nasty, brutish, and short

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/nasty-brutish-and-short
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

Of a hypothetical state of human life, without a government or society, and marked by constant fear, violence, and insecurity.

## Examples

- Without any laws, life becomes nasty, brutish, and short.
- Without police or courts, daily life is often nasty, brutish, and short.
- Survival in the wild can be nasty, brutish, and short for small animals.
- The philosopher argued that in a state of total anarchy, human existence is inevitably nasty, brutish, and short.
- The documentary explores how life in the war zone has become nasty, brutish, and short for the families living there.
- Critics describe the competitive world of that illegal industry as nasty, brutish, and short because no one trusts each other.
- In the absence of a governing authority to maintain order, the author famously posited that the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

## Origin

Mentioned in 1651 in Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes: No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

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