horrible
English edit
Etymology edit
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 edit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈhɒɹɪbəl/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈhɔɹɪbəl/, /ˈhɒɹɪbəl/, [-bəɫ]
Audio (US) (file) - (NYC, Philadelphia, Ireland) IPA(key): /ˈhɑɹɪbəl/
Noun edit
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.
- 2000 January 21, John Dean, CNN interview[1]:
- 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.
- 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 edit
Adjective edit
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 edit
- See Thesaurus:frightening
- See Thesaurus:bad
Related terms edit
Translations edit
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References edit
Asturian edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Latin horribilis.
Adjective edit
horrible (epicene, plural horribles)
Related terms edit
Catalan edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Latin horribilis.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
horrible m or f (masculine and feminine plural horribles)
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
French edit
Etymology edit
Inherited from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, borrowed from Latin horribilis.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
horrible (plural horribles)
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
Further reading edit
- “horrible”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Galician edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Latin horribilis.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
horrible m or f (plural horribles)
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
Middle English edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis.
Adjective edit
horrible
Descendants edit
- English: horrible
Spanish edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Latin horribilis.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
horrible m or f (masculine and feminine plural horribles)
- horrible
- Synonym: desapacible
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
Further reading edit
- “horrible”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014