Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Arousing or tending to arouse horror; dreadful.
  • adjective Very unpleasant; disagreeable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Exciting or tending to excite horror; dreadful; terrible: as, a horrible sight; horrible cruelty; a horrible story.
  • Hideous; shocking; extremely repulsive: as, horrible deformity; a horrible smell.
  • Synonyms Execrable, Abominable, etc. (see nefarious); frightful, fearful, horrid, awful, revolting.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Exciting, or tending to excite, horror or fear; dreadful; terrible; shocking; hideous

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
  • noun A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.
  • adjective Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
  • adjective Tremendously wrong or errant.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective provoking horror

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin horribilis, from horrēre, to tremble.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First attested in Middle English (alternately as horrible and orrible) in 1303: from Old French horrible, from Latin horribilis, from horr(ēre) ("bristle with fear; shudder; stand on end; tremble") + -ibilis ("-ible").

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Examples

  • Oh, let me tell thee all—more than this, something still more horrible, more horrible——!

    I. The Little Shoe. Book XI 1917

  • Earlier Tuesday, Italy recalled its ambassador to Syria, citing what it called the "horrible repression of the civilian population."

    UN Debates Resolution Condemning Syria As Unrest Continues 2011

  • Earlier Tuesday, Italy recalled its ambassador to Syria, citing what it called the "horrible repression of the civilian population."

    UN Debates Resolution Condemning Syria As Unrest Continues 2011

  • ANDERSON: Marc ` s struggles began with what he describes as a horrible childhood.

    CNN Transcript Aug 17, 2007 2007

  • ANDERSON: Marc ` s struggles began with what we describes as a horrible childhood.

    CNN Transcript Jul 2, 2007 2007

  • ANDERSON: Marc ` s struggles began with what we describes as a horrible childhood.

    CNN Transcript May 7, 2007 2007

  • ANDERSON: Marc ` s struggles began with what we describes as a horrible childhood.

    CNN Transcript May 25, 2007 2007

  • The real irony is that right after having what they defined as a horrible experience with the blogs i.e., people were mean, the Post decides to embrace "the blogs" by nuzzling up to its worst elements, right-winger bloggers.

    03/22/2006 2006

  • McCourt, sitting beside his son, also said he feels it's unfair for the league to assert control over his property based on turmoil in his personal life, which he described as "horrible."

    MarketWatch.com - Top Stories 2011

  • The divorced dad has two young daughters and what he calls a horrible dating life, some of which will be shown to

    Thestar.com - Home Page 2010

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