horrid

Borrowed from Latin horridus (“rough, bristly, savage, shaggy, rude”), from horrere (“to bristle”). See horrent, horror, ordure.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒɹɪd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔɹɪd/

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horrid (comparative horrider or more horrid, superlative horridest or most horrid)

1. (archaic) Bristling, rough, rugged.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, I-vii-31, 2007, A. C. Hamilton (editor), Spenser: The Faerie Qveene, Revised 2nd Edition, page 98,

     His haughtie Helmet, horrid all with gold, // Both glorious brightnesse and great terror bredd.

   • 1637, John Milton, Comus (A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634), 1852, Henry John Todd (editor), The Poetical Works of John Milton, Volume 4, 5th Edition, page 113,

     Yea there, where very Desolation dwells, / By grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades, / She may pass on with unblench'd majesty, / Be it not done in pride, or in presumption.

   • 1697, John Dryden, The Works of Virgil: Aeneis, Book IX, 1779, The Works of the English Poets, Volume 18: Dryden's Virgil: Volume II, page 248,

     Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn, / Few paths of human feet, or tracks of beasts, were worn.

2. Causing horror or dread.
   • 1606 William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth, IV-iii, 1843, The Works of Shakespere, Volume 2: Tragedies, unnumbered page,

     Not in the legions / Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damned / In evils, to top Macbeth.

   • 1611 William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, King of Britain, IV-ii, 1821, The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare, Volume V, page 369,

     Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood, / that we the horrider may seem to those / Which chance to find us;

   • 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, The Sea Voyage, V-iv, 1866, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Volume 2, page 327,

     Set out the altar! I myself will be / The priest, and boldly do those horrid rites / You shake to think on.

   • 1885 Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King: Merlin and Vivien, 1870, The Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate, page 166,

     What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale, / And of the horrid foulness that he wrought,

3. Offensive, disagreeable, abominable, execrable.

   horrid weather

   The other girls in class are always horrid to Jane.

   • 1668 October 23, Samuel Pepys, Diary, 1858, Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Volume 4, 6th Edition, page 39,

     My Lord Chief Justice Keeling hath laid the constable by the heels to answer it next Sessions: which is a horrid shame.

   • 1649, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round The World‎, page 362:

     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.

   • 1714, Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto IV, 1836, The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., page 68,

     Methinks already I your tears survey, / Already hear the horrid things they say,

• According to OED, horrid and horrible were originally almost synonymous, but in modern use horrid is somewhat less strong and tending towards the "offensive, disagreeable" sense.[1]

• abominable
• alarming
• appalling
• awful
• dire
• dreadful
• frightful
• harrowing
• hideous
• horrible
• revolting
• shocking
• terrific

• horrid in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• horrid in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.