horrendous
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does horrendous mean? Horrendous is popularly used to mean extremely bad—awful, dreadful, or horrible. It can also mean literally causing horror—horrifying or horrific, as in horrendous violence. Example: If you’re wondering what cake tastes like when you accidentally use salt instead of sugar, it’s horrendous—completely disgusting and inedible.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of horrendous
1650–60; < Latin horrendus dreadful, to be feared (gerund of horrēre to bristle, shudder), equivalent to horr- (akin to hirsute ) + -endus gerund suffix
Explanation
Bad luck, an injury, a mistake, an unfortunate outfit, or a crime — anything can be called horrendous if it causes such dread or fear that you can barely even think about it. If you’ve ever encountered something horrendous, you won’t be surprised to learn that the word traces back to the Latin word horrere, meaning "to bristle with fear, shudder." That’s a good way to think about horrendous things — they cause you to shudder. You can use the word to describe any type of thing — people, ideas, actions, and so on — but save it for those things that are not merely bad but instead are truly horrifying.
Vocabulary lists containing horrendous
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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.
Yes, this horrendous TV egg could only have hatched in a place like Hollywood, where mother-daughter spa days might also mean going under the knife.
From Salon ● Oct. 1, 2026
"My case was horrendous and I wouldn't wish that on anyone."
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
As Fargeat puts it in the exhibition’s wall text, she wanted audiences to see that women’s “pearly smiles are made of so many horrendous things that we have to keep within ourselves.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
In 1971, he moved to Minamata, Japan, a coastal city where methylmercury discharged by a chemical company was polluting the water and causing horrendous genetic damage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
“You were thinking you weren’t going to put up with someone being that horrendous to you, even if she was a teacher.”
From "Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody" by Patrick Ness
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.
