horrible
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Etymology
First attested in Middle English[1] (alternately as horrible and orrible)[2] in 1303[3]: from Old French[1][2] horrible, orrible, orible,[3] from Latin horribilis,[1][2][3] from horr(ēre) (“tremble”) + -ibilis (“-ible”).[2]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈhɒɹɪbəl/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈhɔɹɪbəl/, /ˈhɒɹɪbəl/, [-bəɫ]
Audio (US): (file) - (New York City, Philadelphia, Ireland) IPA(key): /ˈhɑɹɪbəl/
Noun
horrible (plural horribles)
- A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
- Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles!
- 1982, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Genocide Convention: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate:
- A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.
- 1991, Alastair Scott, Tracks Across Alaska: A Dog Sled Journey:
- The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles.
- 2001, Neil K. Komesar, Law's Limits: The Rule of Law and the Supply and Demand of Rights:
- Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions.
- A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.
Translations
Adjective
horrible (comparative horribler or more horrible, superlative horriblest or most horrible)
- Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
- 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
- Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability: […] it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
- 1949, J. D. Salinger, The Laughing Man:
- Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him.
- 1953, Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451:
- Some of us have had plastic surgery on our faces and fingerprints. Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end.
- 1933, James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times:
- Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.
- Tremendously bad.
- 2010, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2010, page 599:
- Having now absorbed all or parts of 750 responses to my complaints about Transformers, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that most of those writing agree with me that it is a horrible movie.
Synonyms
- See Thesaurus:frightening
- See Thesaurus:bad
Related terms
Translations
causing horror, terrible
|
tremendously bad
|
References
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