horrify
Americanverb
-
to cause feelings of horror in; terrify; frighten
-
to dismay or shock greatly
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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horrifysimple
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horrifiessimple
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have horrifiedperfect
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has horrifiedperfect
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am horrifyingprogressive
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are horrifyingprogressive
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is horrifyingprogressive
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have been horrifyingperfect progressive
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has been horrifyingperfect progressive
Past
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horrifiedsimple
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had horrifiedperfect
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was horrifyingprogressive
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were horrifyingprogressive
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had been horrifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of horrify
1785–95; < Latin horrificāre to cause horror, equivalent to horri- (combining form of horrēre to bristle with fear; see horrendous) + -ficāre -fy
Explanation
To horrify is to cause someone to feel shocked and disturbed. It may horrify your parents if you announce that you're dropping out of school to become a professional clown. Things that horrify you fill you with terror, shock, or disgust. It would horrify you to run into a vampire on a dark city streets, and it would also horrify you to be served raw hamburger for lunch. The emotion that arises when something horrifies you is horror, a word that's the same in Latin, with the literal meaning "a shaking, a trembling, or a shudder."
Vocabulary lists containing horrify
List 7
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Stuart Little
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Lawn Boy
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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.
The idea of giving peanut butter to babies and young children will horrify a generation of parents who were told to avoid the foodstuff due to the fear of allergies.
From BBC • May 28, 2024
Take the following quiz to imagine a future and learn if that future will horrify you.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 13, 2024
But it is just this demand—- the requirement that citizens find ways to navigate a social world which will, necessarily, often baffle and horrify them—- that liberal societies must impose.
From Salon • Sep. 9, 2023
But just as his irreverent novels dismay some adults, the tadpoles produce comics — all acted out hilariously onstage — that horrify their adoptive father.
From New York Times • Aug. 3, 2023
Such things did not appear to horrify her.
From "1984" by George Orwell
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.
