horrible

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].

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒɹɪbəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔɹɪbəl/, /ˈhɒɹɪbəl/, [-bəɫ]
• (NYC, Philadelphia) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑɹɪbəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

horrible (plural horribles)

1. A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick

     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, John Dean, CNN interview, January 21, 2000:

     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.

2. A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.

horrible (comparative horribler or more horrible, superlative horriblest or most horrible)

1. Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
   • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619:

     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.

2. 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.

• See Thesaurus:frightening
• See Thesaurus:bad

• horrific
• horrify
• horror
• horrendous

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

horrible (epicene, plural horribles)

1. horrible

• horror

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /uˈri.blə/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /oˈri.ble/

horrible (masculine and feminine plural horribles)

1. horrible

• horriblement

• horror

From Old French horrible, orrible, orible, borrowed from Latin horribilis.

• ^{(mute h)} IPA^(key): /ɔ.ʁibl/

• audio

  (file)

horrible (plural horribles)

1. horrible; causing horror.

• horreur

• “horrible” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• horríbel

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

horrible m or f (plural horribles)

1. horrible

• horriblemente

• horror

Borrowed from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis.

horrible

1. horrible

• English: horrible

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

horrible (plural horribles)

1. horrible

• horriblemente

• horror