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Meaning of ATROCIOUS

Pronunciation:  u'trowshus

WordNet Dictionary
 
 Definition: 
  1. [adj]  provoking horror; "an atrocious automobile accident"; "a frightful crime of decapitation"; "an alarming, even horrifying, picture"; "war is beyond all words horrible"- Winston Churchill; "an ugly wound"
  2. [adj]  exceptionally bad or displeasing; "atrocious taste"; "abominable workmanship"; "an awful voice"; "dreadful manners"; "a painful performance"; "terrible handwriting"; "an unspeakable odor came sweeping into the room"
  3. [adj]  shockingly brutal or cruel; "murder is an atrocious crime"; "a grievous offense against morality"; "a grievous crime"; "no excess was too monstrous for them to commit"
 
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 Synonyms: abominable, alarming, awful, bad, dreadful, evil, flagitious, frightful, grievous, heinous, horrible, horrifying, monstrous, painful, terrible, ugly, unspeakable, wicked
 

 

 

Webster's 1913 Dictionary
 
 Definition: 
\A*tro"cious\, a. [L. atrox, atrocis, cruel, fierce:
cf. F. atroce.]
1. Extremely heinous; full of enormous wickedness; as,
   atrocious quilt or deeds.
2. Characterized by, or expressing, great atrocity.
         Revelations . . . so atrocious that nothing in
         history approaches them.              --De Quincey.
3. Very grievous or violent; terrible; as, atrocious
   distempers. [Obs.] --Cheyne.
Syn: {Atrocious}, {Flagitious}, {Flagrant}.
Usage: Flagitious points to an act as grossly wicked and
       vile; as, a flagitious proposal. Flagrant marks the
       vivid impression made upon the mind by something
       strikingly wrong or erroneous; as, a flagrant
       misrepresentation; a flagrant violation of duty.
       Atrocious represents the act as springing from a
       violent and savage spirit. If Lord Chatham, instead of
       saying ``the atrocious crime of being a young man,''
       had used either of the other two words, his irony
       would have lost all its point, in his celebrated reply
       to Sir Robert Walpole, as reported by Dr. Johnson. --
       {A*tro"cious*ly}, adv. -- {A*tro"cious*ness}, n.
 
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Thesaurus Terms
 
 Related Terms: aberrant, abject, abnormal, abominable, abusive, acute, afflictive, agonizing, animal, anthropophagous, appalling, arrant, atrocious, awful, backhand, backhanded, bad, baneful, barbaric, barbarous, base, beastly, beggarly, beneath contempt, bestial, biting, black, blamable, blameworthy, bloodthirsty, bloody, bloody-minded, brutal, brutalized, brute, brutish, calumnious, cannibalistic, cheesy, contemptible, contumelious, cramping, criminal, cruel, cruel-hearted, crummy, crying, damnable, dark, debased, degraded, degrading, delinquent, demoniac, demoniacal, deplorable, depraved, desperate, despicable, detestable, deviant, devilish, diabolic, dire, dirty, disgraceful, disgusting, displeasing, distasteful, distressing, Draconian, dreadful, egregious, enormous, evil, excruciating, execrable, fell, feral, ferine, ferocious, fetid, fiendish, fiendlike, fierce, filthy, flagitious, flagrant, foul, frightful, fulsome, ghastly, glaring, gnawing, grave, grievous, grim, griping, grisly, gross, gruesome, hard, hardly the thing, harrowing, harsh, hateful, heinous, hellish, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific, horrifying, humiliating, hurtful, hurting, icky, ignominious, illegal, improper, inappropriate, incorrect, indecorous, infamous, infernal, inhuman, inhumane, iniquitous, insolent, insulting, kill-crazy, knavish, lamentable, left-handed, little, loathsome, lousy, low, low-down, lumpen, malign, malignant, mangy, mean, measly, merciless, miserable, monstrous, murderous, nasty, naughty, nefarious, noisome, noncivilized, not done, not the thing, notorious, obnoxious, obscene, odious, off-base, off-color, offensive, out-of-line, outrageous, painful, paltry, paroxysmal, peccant, petty, piercing, pitiable, pitiful, pitiless, poignant, poky, poor, pungent, racking, rank, regrettable, reprehensible, reprobate, rotten, ruthless, sacrilegious, sad, sadistic, sanguinary, sanguineous, satanic, savage, scabby, scandalous, schlock, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurrile, scurrilous, scurvy, severe, shabby, shameful, shameless, sharkish, sharp, shocking, shoddy, shooting, sickening, sinful, slavering, small, sordid, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, squalid, stabbing, stinging, subhuman, tameless, Tartarean, terrible, too bad, tormenting, torturous, tragic, truculent, unchristian, uncivilized, unclean, undue, unfit, unfitting, unforgivable, ungentle, unhuman, unlawful, unmentionable, unpardonable, unrighteous, unseemly, unspeakable, unsuitable, untamed, unworthy, vicious, vile, villainous, wicked, wild, woeful, wolfish, worst, worthless, wretched, wrong, wrongful
 

 

 

 

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