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horrible

noun, adj — 4 senses

horrible

noun

UK /ˈhɒɹ.ɪ.bəl/ · US /ˈhɔɹ.ɪ.bəl/

Etymology First attested in Middle English (alternately as horrible and orrible) in 1303: from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis, from horr(ēre) (“tremble”) + -ibilis (“-ible”).

1

A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.

  • 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!1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
  • A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.1982, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Genocide Convention: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate:
3 more examples
  • The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles.1991, Alastair Scott, Tracks Across Alaska: A Dog Sled Journey:
  • I'm trying to convince him that the criminal behavior that's going on at the White House has to end. And I give him one horrible after the next. I just keep raising them. He sort of swats them away.2000 January 21, John Dean, CNN interview:
  • Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions.2001, Neil K. Komesar, Law's Limits: The Rule of Law and the Supply and Demand of Rights:
2

A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.

horrible

adj

Etymology First attested in Middle English (alternately as horrible and orrible) in 1303: from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis, from horr(ēre) (“tremble”) + -ibilis (“-ible”).

1

Causing horror; terrible; shocking.

  • 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.1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
  • Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him.1949, J. D. Salinger, The Laughing Man:
2 more examples
  • 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.1953, Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451:
  • Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.1933, James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times:
2

Tremendously bad.

  • 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.2010, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2010, page 599:
Synonyms
frightening, bad
Derived terms
horribleness, horribly, unhorrible
Related terms
horrendous, horrific, horrify, horror

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.