horrid

comparative horrider · comparative more horrid · superlative horridest · superlative most horrid

1. archaicBristling, rough, rugged.

   His haughtie Helmet, horrid all with gold, // Both glorious brightnesse and great terror bredd.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31

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   Yea there, where very Desolation dwells, / By grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades, / She may pass on with unblench'd majesty, / Be it not done in pride, or in presumption.

   Comus

   1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC

   Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn, / Few paths of human feet, or tracks of beasts, were worn.

   1697, Virgil, “The Ninth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

2. Causing horror or dread.

   What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale, / And of the horrid foulness that he wrought,

   1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 132

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   Not in the legions / Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damned / In evils, to top Macbeth.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

   Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood, / that we the horrider may seem to those / Which chance to find us;

   1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]

   Set out the altar! I myself will be / The priest, and boldly do those horrid rites / You shake to think on.

   c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Sea-Voyage. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act V, scene iv

   As ſoon as vve had fired, they ſet up the horrideſt Yell, or Hovvling, partly raiſed by thoſe that vvere vvounded, and partly by thoſe that pitied and condoled the Bodies they ſavv lye dead, that I never heard any thing like it before or ſince.

   1720, [Daniel Defoe], The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton, London: […] J[ohn] Brotherton, […], J[ohn] Graves […], A[nne] Dodd, […], and T[homas] Warner, […], →OCLC, pages 69–70

   Synonyms: affreux, alarming, spine-tingling, appalling, awful, eldritch, buggish, butt-clenching

3. Offensive, disagreeable, abominable, execrable.

   horrid weather

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   The other girls in class are always horrid to Jane.

   [T]hoſe Laſciuious, Immodeſt, VVhoriſh, or vngodly Faſhions, and Attires, vvhich Metamorphiſe, and Transforme, our Light, and Giddie Females of the Superior and Gentile ranke, into ſundry Antique, Horred, and Out-landiſh ſhapes, from day, to day: […]

   1628, William Prynne, The Vnlouelinesse, of Louelockes. Or, A Summarie Discourse, Proouing: The Wearing, and Nourishing of a Locke, or Loue-locke, to be Altogether Vnseemely, and Vnlawfull unto Christians. […], London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 1

   My Lord Chief Justice Keeling hath laid the constable by the heels to answer it next Sessions: which is a horrid shame.

   1668 November 1 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “October 23rd, 1668”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume VIII, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1896, →OCLC

   About the middle of November we began to work on our Ship's bottom, which we found very much eaten with the Worm: For this is a horrid place for Worms.

   1697, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 362

   Methinks already I your tears survey, / Already hear the horrid things they say,

   1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, canto IV

1. not comparableTerribly; horridly; to an extreme extent.

   “Beg y’ pardon, sir,” said a voice at the tent door; “but Dormer’s ’orrid bad, sir, an’ they’ve taken him orf, sir.”

   1889, Rudyard Kipling, “Only A Subaltern”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 149