horrible
/ˈhɔɹ.ɪ.bəl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.44 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
adj
Example Sentences
- "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!"
- "A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty."
- "The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles."
- "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."
- "Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions."
- "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."
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, horribilis
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈhɔɹ.ɪ.bəl/
- British English: /ˈhɒɹ.ɪ.bəl/
Inflected Forms
horribles (plural)
horribler (comparative)
more horrible (comparative)
horriblest (superlative)
most horrible (superlative)