atrocious
/əˈtɹoʊ.ʃəs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.14 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Very bad; abominable, disgusting.
Example Sentences
- "Prisons have been the sites of atrocious mistreatment of prisoners."
- "I had resolved in my own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness; and I banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion."
- "Their taste in clothes is just atrocious."
- "Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck."
- "The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house."
- "It is standard practice for search and rescue authorities to ask other vessels in the area to assist. Usually, this is done. The weather on the night of 31 December was too atrocious, and when at 11pm the Coast Guard asked the crabber Ruff & Reddy to head to the scene, its skipper refused, as a skipper has a right to do if he believes conditions to be too treacherous."
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əˈtɹoʊ.ʃəs/
- British English: /əˈtɹəʊ.ʃəs/
Inflected Forms
more atrocious (comparative)
most atrocious (superlative)