atrocious

From Latin atrōx (“cruel, fierce, frightful”) +‎ -ious.

• enPR: ə-trō′-shəs
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈtɹəʊʃəs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈtɹoʊʃəs/

• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -əʊʃəs
• Hyphenation: a‧tro‧cious

atrocious (comparative more atrocious, superlative most atrocious)

1. Frightful, evil, cruel, or monstrous.

   Prisons have been the sites of atrocious mistreatment of prisoners.

2. Offensive or heinous.
   • 1818, anonymous [Mary Shelley], chapter VIII, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, London: Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, OCLC 830979744; republished as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus […] In Two Volumes, volume I, new (2nd) edition, London: Printed for G. and W. B. Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane, 1823, OCLC 270812039, page 143:

     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.

3. Very bad; abominable, disgusting.

   Their taste in clothes is just atrocious.

   • 1851 October 18, Herman Melville, “The Town-Ho’s Story. (As Told at the Golden Inn.)”, in The Whale, 1st British edition, London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 14262177; republished as Moby Dick or The White Whale (Famous Sea Stories), Boston, Mass.: The St. Botolph Society, 53 Beacon Street, 1892 (February 1922 printing), OCLC 237074, page 239:

     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.

   • 1897 November, Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan, OCLC 853124046; republished as The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, publishers, January 1898 (March 1912 printing), OCLC 4748647, page 58:

     The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an 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.

• atrociously
• atrociousness
• vomitrocious

• atrocity