outrage
Americannoun
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outrages
plural
-
an act of wanton cruelty or violence; any gross violation of law or decency.
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anything that strongly offends, insults, or affronts the feelings.
-
a powerful feeling of resentment or anger aroused by something perceived as an injury, insult, or injustice.
Outrage seized the entire nation at the news of the attempted assassination.
verb (used with object)
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outrages,
present (3rd person singular)
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outraged,
past participle, past
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outraging
present participle
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to subject to grievous violence or indignity.
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to anger or offend; make resentful; shock.
I am outraged by his whole attitude.
-
to offend against (right, decency, feelings, etc.) grossly or shamelessly.
Such conduct outrages our normal sense of decency.
-
to rape.
- Synonyms:
- violate
noun
-
a wantonly vicious or cruel act
-
a gross violation of decency, morality, honour, etc
-
profound indignation, anger, or hurt, caused by such an act
verb
-
to cause profound indignation, anger, or resentment in
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to offend grossly (feelings, decency, human dignity, etc)
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to commit an act of wanton viciousness, cruelty, or indecency on
-
a euphemistic word for rape 1
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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outragesimple
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outragessimple
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have outragedperfect
-
has outragedperfect
-
am outragingprogressive
-
are outragingprogressive
-
is outragingprogressive
-
have been outragingperfect progressive
-
has been outragingperfect progressive
Past
-
outragedsimple
-
had outragedperfect
-
was outragingprogressive
-
were outragingprogressive
-
had been outragingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of outrage
1250–1300; Middle English < Old French outrage, ultrage, equivalent to outr ( er ) to push beyond bounds (derivative of outre beyond < Latin ultrā ) + -age -age
Explanation
If you consider how people are treated in airports an outrage, you get really angry over airport security or the price of airport food. Six dollars for a piece of pizza? What an outrage! Something is an outrage when it is shocking and makes you angry. Stealing from an orphanage? That's an outrage. Sometimes outrage leads to action. Public outrage over the latest political scandal often makes the news.
Vocabulary lists containing outrage
NAEP Test Words
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100 SAT words Beginning with "O"
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Unit 2: Pivotal Words and Phrases
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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:
But the greatest threat they face, at least in terms of public opinion, is not outrage but indifference.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Customers have shared their outrage after an app used by many businesses to track timesheets and produce invoices hiked bills by as much as 1500%, with one person calling it "daylight robbery".
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Nuclear-armed North Korea has long voiced outrage at the exercises, considering them dress rehearsals for an invasion.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
Characterizing the outrage that followed as a strategic error feels a little mercenary.
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026
He’d rather be here, even in prison, than turning his back on an outrage.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
Years later, similar outrages have come to light and government officials will have a harder time finding someone to blame.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
It reveals an American elite blinded to outrages occurring in plain view, due to the clubby nature of high society.
From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2025
In an interview with historian Brian Harrison in the 1970s, Jessie recalled the so-called "pillar box outrages" were planned "with military precision."
From BBC ● Apr. 6, 2025
The full list of outrages is too long to list here, and I assume that most informed readers know about most of them.
From Salon ● Mar. 28, 2025
It was then that he decided to review the titles to land that went back a hundred years and he discovered the legalized outrages of his brother, José Arcadio.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Many journalists were especially outraged because of the extreme dangers faced by Mexican reporters, editors, columnists and photographers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Federico Basile, the mayor of Messina, said he was "deeply outraged" by the "heinous criminal act".
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
Senior officials who had overseen the subpoenas’ issuance acknowledged to an outraged Judge Arun Subramanian that the subpoenas were riddled with errors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was "shaken and outraged" by the attack on "our open society, our way of life" and expressed his condolences to the family and friends of the dead woman.
From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026
She gets like that sometimes, when she gets so outraged about something that there’s just no stopping her.
From "Auggie & Me" by R. J. Palacio
In the months since, he has expanded the deployments of troops to US cities, outraging critics.
From Barron's ● Oct. 18, 2025
Ex-Barnsley striker Shaun Tuton was dropped by Whitby Town after he was found guilty of outraging public decency, with details of the case reported in the national press.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2024
Russia enacted a similar law that year, outraging women’s rights advocates.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 24, 2024
A controlled burn in Calaveras Big Trees State Park has badly damaged a pair of giant sequoias named ‘the Orphans,’ outraging community members.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2023
I have often thought that I really deserved punishment for thus outraging the public ear.
From Sawdust & Spangles Stories & Secrets of the Circus by W. C. Coup
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.
