abhorrence
Americannoun
-
a feeling of extreme repugnance or aversion; utter loathing; abomination.
- Synonyms:
- detestation, execration
-
something or someone extremely repugnant or loathsome.
noun
-
a feeling of extreme loathing or aversion
-
a person or thing that is loathsome
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of abhorrence
First recorded in 1650–60; abhorr(ent) + -ence
Explanation
Abhorrence is a feeling of hate and disgust. If you have an abhorrence of violence, you probably won't want to watch "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." The Latin ancestor of abhorrence isn't all that different from today's word or its meaning — it comes from abhorrēre, which means "to shrink back from," and it became synonymous with loathing in the early 17th century. Note the similarity to the word horror — a good way to remember the word's meaning. The Polish physicist Joseph Rotblat knew the power of the word when he used it to refer to the "widespread instinctive abhorrence of nuclear weapons.”
Vocabulary lists containing abhorrence
The Book Thief
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
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Stories of Ourselves
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In recent posts, he said he felt "abhorrence" towards the offences he committed and admitted to, and stated that his sentence would become spent on 16 September.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
He conveys the grief and terror felt by abolitionists in the founding generation, who predicted catastrophe, and the abhorrence of the institution among such men as Adams, who believed in emancipation by gradual means.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
It had everything to do with the public’s interest in the news and the First Amendment’s abhorrence of prior restraints.
From Slate ● May 21, 2024
What's just as bad is the abhorrence problem, meaning that sometimes the original meaning of the Constitution is clear enough, but the results of an "originalist" interpretation would be morally abhorrent to most Americans today.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2022
To Pascal, this seemingly bizarre behavior proved that it wasn’t an abhorrence of the vacuum that drove the mercury up the tube.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
