Terrible cruelty with knives perhaps (7)
I believe the answer is:
cutlery
'knives perhaps' is the definition.
(a knife is a kind of cutlery)
'terrible cruelty' is the wordplay.
'terrible' is an anagram indicator.
'cruelty' is an anagram of 'CUTLERY'.
'with' is the link.
(Other definitions for cutlery that I've seen before include "Eating utensils" , "Knives, forks, etc" , "Eating implements" , "Eating irons" , "Knives, forks and spoons" .)