atrocity
(əˈtrɒsɪtɪ)
[(? a. F. atrocité,) ad. L. atrōcitātem, n. of quality f. atrox fierce, cruel.]
1. Savage enormity, horrible or heinous wickedness.
| 1534 More On the Passion Wks. 1294/2 For the atrocyte of the story..almost euerye childe hathe heard. a 1674 Clarendon (J.) They desired justice might be done upon offenders, as the atrocity of their crimes deserved. 1863 Gardiner Hist. Eng. I. 253 If the atrocity of their design was hidden from their eyes. |
2. Fierceness, sternness, implacability. arch.
| 1635 Naunton Fragm. Reg. 183 The atrocity of her father's nature. 1865 Baring-Gould Werewolves v. 54 They besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors. |
3. An atrocious deed; an act of extreme cruelty and heinousness.
| 1793 T. Jefferson Writ. (1859) IV. 14 To defend themselves from the atrocities of a vastly more numerous and powerful people. 1880 M{supc}Carthy Own Times, The deeds which have ever since been known as ‘the Bulgarian atrocities.’ 1915 Sphere 22 May 197 The British report on German atrocities in Belgium. 1918 W. Owen Let. 25 Oct. (1967) 589, I have found in all these villages no evidence of German atrocities. The girls here were treated with perfect respect. |
4. colloq. with no moral reference: A very bad blunder, violation of taste or good manners, etc.
| 1878 Hatton Corr. Pref. 4 Their diction and their spelling, and the fearful atrocities committed in the latter. |
5. attrib. and Comb., as atrocity-monger (so atrocity-mongering vbl. n. and ppl. a.), atrocity propaganda, atrocity story.
| 1896 Westm. Gaz. 18 Feb. 1/2 The massacres were a tale, either grossly exaggerated or altogether invented by atrocity-mongering journals. 1897 Ibid. 28 Aug. 2/3 We should be very cautious about accepting these atrocity stories. 1899 Ibid. 18 Oct. 3/3 In the words of General Colley, is not all this atrocity-mongering calculated to ‘make our soldiers either cowards or butchers’? 1905 A. Bennett Tales of Five Towns i. 94 You see roundabouts, swings,..atrocity booths, quack dentists. 1914 E. A. Powell Fighting in Flanders v. 129 Let them hear our side of this atrocity business. 1930 G. B. Shaw What I really wrote about War p. ix, The atrocity mongers who are using Belgium as a stick to beat Germany. 1937 Koestler Spanish Testament iv. 84 We know how much harm the preposterous atrocity propaganda engaged in by both sides caused during the Great War. |