terrible

Borrowed from Old French, from Latin terribilis (“frightful”), from terreō (“I frighten, terrify, alarm; I deter by terror, scare (away)”). Compare terror, deter.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛ.ɹə.bl̩/, /ˈtɛ.ɹɪ.bl̩/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: tearable, in some accents

terrible (comparative terribler or more terrible, superlative terriblest or most terrible)

1. Dreadful; causing alarm and fear.

   The witch gave him a terrible curse.

2. Formidable, powerful.
   • 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     […] and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog," and "real old salt," and such-like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

3. Intense; extreme in degree or extent.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 18, in The China Governess‎:

     ‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?

   He paid a terrible price for his life of drinking.

4. Unpleasant; disagreeable.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 12, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     To Edward […] he was terrible, nerve-inflaming, poisonously asphyxiating. He sat rocking himself in the late Mr. Churchill's swing chair, smoking and twaddling.

   The food was terrible, but it was free.

5. Very bad; lousy.
   • 2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits”, in The Onion AV Club:

     The openly ridiculous plot has The Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) scheming to win the Pirate Of The Year competition, even though he’s a terrible pirate, far outclassed by rivals voiced by Jeremy Piven and Salma Hayek.

   Whatever he thinks, he is a terrible driver.

• See also Thesaurus:frightening

• (very bad): excellent

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

• treblier

terrible (masculine and feminine plural terribles)

1. terrible (causing fear)
2. terrible (formidable, intense)

From Latin terribilis

• IPA^(key): /tɛ.ʁibl/

• audio

  (file)

terrible (plural terribles)

1. (all senses) terrible
   • 1837, Louis Viardot, L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche‎^{fr.Wikisource}, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Chapter II:

     Mais à peine se vit-il en chemin qu’une pensée terrible l’assaillit, et telle, que peu s’en fallut qu’elle ne lui fît abandonner l’entreprise commencée.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

     But scarcely did he see himself on the road when a terrible thought assaulted him, and such that little was missing to make him abandon the enterprise he had started.

2. (colloquial) great, excellent

• terreur
• terriblement
• terrifier

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

From Latin terribilis

• IPA^(key): /teˈrible/, [t̪eˈriβle]

terrible (plural terribles)

1. terrible (very bad)
2. terrific (very good)

• terriblemente
• terribilísimo
• terror