Atrocious \A*tro"cious\, a. [L. atrox, atrocis, cruel, fierce:
cf. F. atroce.]
1. Extremely heinous; full of enormous wickedness; as,
atrocious guilt or deeds.
[1913 Webster]
2. Characterized by, or expressing, great atrocity.
[1913 Webster]
Revelations . . . so atrocious that nothing in
history approaches them. --De Quincey.
[1913 Webster]
3. Very grievous or violent; terrible; as, atrocious
distempers. [Obs.] --Cheyne.
[1913 Webster]
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.
[1913 Webster] --
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
atrocious
adj 1: 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" [syn: flagitious, grievous, heinous, monstrous]
2: 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" [syn: abominable,
awful, dreadful, painful, terrible, unspeakable]
3: 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" [syn: frightful, horrifying,
horrible, ugly]
WordNet (r) 2.0
261 Moby Thesaurus words for "atrocious":
Draconian, Tartarean, 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, 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, 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
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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