horror

plural horrors · alternative obsolete horrour

1. countableuncountableAn intense distressing emotion of fear or repugnance.

   Their swarthy Hosts wou'd darken all our Plains, / Doubling the native Horror of the War, / And making Death more grim.

   1712, Joseph Addison, Cato: A tragedy, published 1750, page 44

2. countableuncountableSomething horrible; that which excites horror.

   I saw many horrors during the war.

   2 more examples

   The Home Magazine for July (Binghamton and New York) contains ‘The Patriots' War Chant,’ a poem by Douglas Malloch; ‘The Story of the War,’ by Theodore Waters; ‘A Horseman in the Sky,’ by Ambrose Bierce, with a portrait of Mr. Bierce, whose tales of horror are horrible of themselves, not as war is horrible; ‘A Yankee Hero,’ by W. L. Calver; ‘The Warfare of the Future,’ by Louis Seemuller; ‘Florence Nightingale,’ by Susan E. Dickenson, with two rare portraits, etc.

   1898 July 3, Philadelphia Inquirer, page 22

   Could there be stories with more horror than these?

   2009, Devin Watson, Horror Screenwriting

3. countableuncountableIntense dislike or aversion; an abhorrence.

   “Mrs. Yule's chagrin and horror at what she called her son's base ingratitude knew no bounds ; at first it was even thought that she would never get over it. […] ”

   1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tragedy in Dartmoor Terrace”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020

4. uncountableA genre of fiction designed to evoke a feeling of fear and suspense.

   A well-received Johnny Fuller R & B horror called "Haunted House."

   1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 156

   2 more examples

   Those who enjoy horror, stories overflowing with blood and black mystery, will be grateful to Richard Marsh for writing ‘The Beetle.’

   1917 February 11, New York Times, Book reviews, page 52

   […] there were hastily produced B movies, such as the peplums, the spaghetti westerns, the detective stories, the horrors.

   2006, Pierluigi on Cinema

   1. countableAn individual work in this genre.
5. colloquialcountableA nasty or ill-behaved person; a rascal or terror.

   The neighbour's kids are a pack of little horrors!

6. countableinformaluncountableAn intense anxiety or a nervous depression; often the horrors.
7. countablein pluralinformaluncountableDelirium tremens.

   `My belief is that he had the horrors without knowin' it.'

   1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 53