abominate
Americanverb
Synonym Usage
See hate.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
abominatesimple
-
abominatessimple
-
have abominatedperfect
-
has abominatedperfect
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am abominatingprogressive
-
are abominatingprogressive
-
is abominatingprogressive
-
have been abominatingperfect progressive
-
has been abominatingperfect progressive
Past
-
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:
"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
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
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
He rails against the world around him, which he abominates as degraded and contemptible.
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
Though he abominates small talk, Manning has taught himself a few conversational gambits.
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 Thackeray, William Makepeace
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
Even so, he seems genuinely to have abominated slavery, and he expressed terrible premonitions: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
From Time Magazine Archive
If there was anything under the sun the madame abominated it was love-letters.
From Daisy Brooks Or, A Perilous Love by Libbey, Laura Jean
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 Putnam, George Haven
There was once a compliance between the nobles of Judah and the Samaritans, which I hope you do not read of without abominating the thing: You find it, Neh. vi.
From The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) by Gillespie, George
I could never approve in thy uncle this machine for spiritual ductility; besides, I have for all wax puppets such an abominating, shuddering dread.
From Titan: A Romance Vol. II (of 2) by Jean Paul
For they, abominating all images, worshipped God only by fire.”
From The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets by Lord, Eleazar
Both agreed in abominating the present state of Affairs.
From Before and after Waterloo Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802; 1814; 1816) by Stanley, Edward
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.
