Dictionary Definition
horrid adj
1 exceedingly bad; "when she was bad she was
horrid"
2 grossly offensive to decency or morality;
causing horror; "subjected to outrageous cruelty"; "a hideous
pattern of injustice"; "horrific conditions in the mining industry"
[syn: hideous, horrific, outrageous]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
Latin horridus rough, bristly, savage, shaggy, rude; from horrere to bristle. See horrent, horror, ordurePronunciation
Adjective
- bristling,
rough, rugged
- His haughtie Helmet. horrid all with gold,//Both glorious
brightnesse and great terror bredd. - Edmund
Spenser, The Faerie Queen, I-vii-31
- Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn. - John Dryden
- Ye grots and caverns shagg's with horrid thorn! - Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, I-20
- Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn. - John Dryden
- His haughtie Helmet. horrid all with gold,//Both glorious
brightnesse and great terror bredd. - Edmund
Spenser, The Faerie Queen, I-vii-31
- causing horror or
dread
- Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,//that we the
horrider may seem to those//Which chance to find us. - Shakespeare,
Cymbeline, IV-ii
- I myself will be//The priest, and boldly do those horrid rites//You shake to think on. - John Fletcher, Sea Voyage, V-iv
- Not in the legions Of horrid hell. - Shakespeare, Macbeth, IV-iii
- What say you then to fair Sir Percivale,//And of the horrid foulness that he wrought? - Alfred Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien
- I myself will be//The priest, and boldly do those horrid rites//You shake to think on. - John Fletcher, Sea Voyage, V-iv
- Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,//that we the
horrider may seem to those//Which chance to find us. - Shakespeare,
Cymbeline, IV-ii
- offensive,
disagreeable,
abominable, execrable
- 1668 My Lord Chief Justice Keeling hath laid the constable by
the heels to answer it next Sessions: which is a horrid shame. -
Samuel
Pepys, Diary, October 23
- About the middle of November we began to work on our Ship's bottom, which we found very much eaten with the Worm: For this is a horrid place for Worms. - William Dampier, Voyages, I-362
- Already I your tears survey,//Already hear the horrid things they say. - Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, IV-108
- About the middle of November we began to work on our Ship's bottom, which we found very much eaten with the Worm: For this is a horrid place for Worms. - William Dampier, Voyages, I-362
- 1668 My Lord Chief Justice Keeling hath laid the constable by
the heels to answer it next Sessions: which is a horrid shame. -
Samuel
Pepys, Diary, October 23
Translations
bristling, rough, rugged
causing horror or dread
- Finnish: kauhea
offensive, disagreeable, abominable, execrable
Usage notes
- "Horrid" and "horrible" originally had different meanings, but have become almost synonymous over the years.
Synonyms
References
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
abhorrent, abominable, appalling, arrant, astounding, atrocious, awe-inspiring,
awesome, awful, baneful, base, beastly, beneath contempt,
blameworthy,
brutal, contemptible, deplorable, despicable, detestable, dire, direful, disgusting, dread, dreaded, dreadful, egregious, enormous, fell, fetid, filthy, flagrant, forbidding, formidable, foul, frightful, fulsome, ghastly, ghoulish, grievous, grim, grisly, gross, gruesome, hateful, heinous, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrific, horrifying, infamous, lamentable, loathsome, lousy, lurid, macabre, monstrous, morbid, nasty, nefarious, noisome, notorious, obnoxious, odious, offensive, outrageous, pitiable, pitiful, rank, redoubtable, regrettable, repellent, repelling, reprehensible, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, rotten, sad, scandalous, schlock, schrecklich, scurvy, shabby, shameful, shocking, shoddy, sordid, squalid, terrible, terrific, terrifying, too bad, tragic, tremendous, unclean, unspeakable, vile, villainous, woeful, worst, worthless, wretched