Dictionary.com
definitions

egregious

[ih-gree-juh s, -jee-uh s]
|
SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR egregious ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective

extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar.
Archaic. distinguished or eminent.

RELATED CONTENT

Your College in a WordLast year you may have seen our analysis of what words are most looked up in certain US cities. We found that Boston was looking up fender-bender and Dallas was looking up peep. This year we decided to take that approach to a different sort of community: college campuses. What words are students at Stanford or Northwestern or the University of New Mexico looking up? Are …
READ MORE
Why Bluster is Dictionary’s 2012 Word of the YearYou may recall that last year we selected a rare word, a tongue-twister of sorts, as the 2011 Word of the Year: tergiversate which means “to change repeatedly one’s attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; equivocate.” Rather than pick a word that rose to prominence through common usage during the year (like Occupy or Arab Spring), we selected a word hidden …
READ MORE

RELATED WORDS

grievous, scandalous, deplorable, flagrant, heinous, nefarious, atrocious, shocking, glaring, intolerable, extreme, arrant, capital, gross, infamous, insufferable, monstrous, notorious, outright, preposterous

Nearby words

  1. egotist,
  2. egotistic,
  3. egotropic,
  4. egr,
  5. egr valve,
  6. egress,
  7. egression,
  8. egressive,
  9. egret,
  10. egypt

Origin of egregious

1525–35; < Latin ēgregius preeminent, equivalent to ē- e-1 + greg-, stem of grēx flock + -ius adj. suffix; see -ous
Related forms
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for egregious

British Dictionary definitions for egregious

egregious

adjective

outstandingly bad; flagrantan egregious lie
archaic distinguished; eminent
Derived Formsegregiously, adverbegregiousness, noun

Word Origin for egregious

C16: from Latin ēgregius outstanding (literally: standing out from the herd), from ē- out + grex flock, herd
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for egregious

egregious

adj.

1530s, "distinguished, eminent, excellent," from Latin egregius "distinguished, excellent, extraordinary," from the phrase ex grege "rising above the flock," from ex "out of" (see ex-) + grege, ablative of grex "herd, flock" (see gregarious).

Disapproving sense, now predominant, arose late 16c., originally ironic and is not in the Latin word, which etymologically means simply "exceptional." Related: Egregiously; egregiousness.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper