abominate
Americanverb
Synonym Usage
See hate.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
abominatesimple
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abominatessimple
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have abominatedperfect
-
has abominatedperfect
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am abominatingprogressive
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are abominatingprogressive
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is abominatingprogressive
-
have been abominatingperfect progressive
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has been abominatingperfect progressive
Past
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abominatedsimple
-
had abominatedperfect
-
was abominatingprogressive
-
were abominatingprogressive
-
had been abominatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of abominate
First recorded in 1840–50; from Latin abōminātus “loathed,” past participle of abōminārī. See abominable, -ate 1
Explanation
When you abominate something, you really, really hate it. You might abominate your curfew, or the substitute teacher for your math class. Picture a preacher telling you, "Abominate sin!" Abominate comes from the Latin verb abominari, which comes from ab-, meaning “away from,” and omin, meaning “omen.” You might consider something you abominate — the sound of nails on a chalkboard, for many — to be as thoroughly bad as a bad omen itself. You avoid that sound at all costs, the way some people avoid a black cat crossing the street.
Vocabulary lists containing abominate
Antigone
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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
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O Pioneers!
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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.
See Examples For:
They abominate the starched prosiness of the northern Haskell clan into which Sara marries, but they are game.
From Time Magazine Archive
There is little that Osborne does not abominate.
From Time Magazine Archive
"I am not an intolerant woman, but I abominate stupidity," she says.
From Time Magazine Archive
I absolutely deplore and abominate, however, the person that Clinton is.
From Time Magazine Archive
You got me out of this place and here’s your reward; you’re everything we jointly abominate.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
She knows his tastes, his desires and reprehensions – "beans he abominates" – and follows his progress, his growth in years and learning, with an almost maternal eye.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 29, 2011
Though he abominates small talk, Manning has taught himself a few conversational gambits.
From Time Magazine Archive
He abominates his widowed father, a pompous timber merchant, accusing him of real and fancied slights to his dead mother.
From Time Magazine Archive
He rails against the world around him, which he abominates as degraded and contemptible.
From Time Magazine Archive
Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley arrives, and Mr. Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it convenient to go to town.
From Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
This Dinocrates had been my brother in the flesh, seven years old, who being diseased with ulcers of the face had come to a horrible death, so that his death was abominated of all men.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2019
Nor was he remotely touchy-feely — a locution he would have abominated — apparently shrinking even from handshakes and hugs.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2018
An early supporter of Nelson Mandela – he sent him books in prison – Astor abominated apartheid, supported the Nagas of north-east India, and famously denounced Anthony Eden over Suez in 1956.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 2, 2011
In New Delhi, Mahatma Gandhi was murdered; India's blood bath subsided in shocked dismay and its legislature legally abolished the untouchability which, in life, Gandhi had abominated above all of India's other woes.
From Time Magazine Archive
I had no use for the hospital, wouldn't go there, and abominated the idea of taking medicine.
From The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 by Leander Stillwell
History, always abominating lapses, is yet more tender of some places than others.
From The Prince of India — Volume 01 by Lewis Wallace
Definitely, abominating the wheel, he rent it to bits in his imagination, experiencing the joy of the convict who passes out through the door of his prison and breathes the air of freedom.
From The Dead Command From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan by Frances Douglas
For they, abominating all images, worshipped God only by fire.”
From The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets by Eleazar Lord
I came to Germany abominating the English and burning to strike a blow for you.
From Greenmantle by John Buchan
What was exceptional, however, in his state of mind was that, while abominating the institution, he was able to give a sympathetic understanding to the opinions and to the prejudices of the slave-owners.
From Abraham Lincoln by George Haven Putnam
Definitions 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.
