enormity

noun

Etymology: From Late Middle English ēnorme (“monstrous or unnatural act; enormity”), from Old French énormité (“enormity”), from Latin ēnormitās (“irregularity; enormity”), from ēnōrmis (“irregular, unusual; enormous, immense”) + -itās (suffix forming nouns indicating states of being). Ēnōrmis is derived from e- (a variant of ex- (prefix meaning ‘out; away’) + nōrma (“norm, standard”) + -is (Latin suffix forming adjectives from nouns).

1. Deviation from what is normal or standard; irregularity, abnormality.
2. Deviation from moral normality; extreme wickedness, nefariousness, or cruelty.

   “Not until the war ended and journalists were able to enter Cambodia did the world really become aware of the enormity of Pol Pot’s oppression.”

   “I had an obscure feeling that all was not over, and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past.”

3. A breach of law or morality; a transgression, an act of evil or wickedness.

   “Yet she appeared confident in innocence, and did not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by thousands; for all the kindness which her beauty might otherwise have excited, was obliterated in the minds of the spectators by the imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have committed.”

   “Monsters of impurity, avaricious wretches, poisoners, have occupied the papal see. A learned bishop (Maret of the General Council) expresses himself with holy indignation in reference to the frightful enormities of the tenth century.”

4. Great size; enormousness, hugeness, immenseness.

   “I am in Amerika! I felt like weeping at the enormity of this fact. Amerika, the fabled, the mythic, the coveted. The knowledge that we had no visas, and therefore would not be allowed to set foot on land, dampened my enthusiasm only a little.”

   “But the enormity of Clement's vision of papal grandeur only became clear once the public rooms were completed during the years that immediately followed.”