horrible
adjective
- causing or provoking horror
- generally very bad, displeasing
- really really unskilled at
- extremely unhealthy, unbeneficial
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈhɒɹ.ɪ.bəl/ / /ˈhɔɹ.ɪ.bəl/ / [-b(ə)ɫ]
adj
Etymology: First attested in Middle English (alternately as horrible and orrible) in 1303: from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis, from horr(ēre) (“tremble”) + -ibilis (“-ible”).
- Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
“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.”
“Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him.”
- Tremendously bad.
“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.”
noun
Etymology: First attested in Middle English (alternately as horrible and orrible) in 1303: from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis, from horr(ēre) (“tremble”) + -ibilis (“-ible”).
- A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
“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!”
“A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.”
- A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.