horrific, a.
(hɒˈrɪfɪk)
[a. F. horrifique (1532 Rabelais) or ad. L. horrific-us, causing tremor or terror, frightful, f. stem of horrēre: see horre v. and -fic.]
Causing horror, horrifying.
| 1653 Urquhart Rabelais ii. xxxiv. 219 Now (my Masters) you have heard a beginning of the horrifick history. 1730–46 Thomson Autumn 782 The huge encumbrance of horrific woods. 1799 Jane West Tale of Times I. 5 The lover of the wonderful and the admirer of the horrific. 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. II. xxiii. 259 To add the horrific incidents. 1856 Masson Ess., Three Devils 83 The horrific plays a much less important part in human experience than it once did. 1879 G. Macdonald Sir Gibbie I. xviii. 243 A thrill of horrific wonder and delight. |
Hence hoˈrrifically adv., in a horrific manner.
| a 1693 Urquhart Rabelais iii. xxiii. 193 Mars..did raise his Voice..horrifically loud. 1830 Westm. Rev. XIII. 364 Something horrifically picturesque. 1972 Daily Tel. 24 Feb. 2/6 The Aldershot explosion which caused the deaths of seven people went ‘horrifically wrong’ as an act of IRA retaliation, said Miss Bernadette Devlin. 1972 Oxford Times 27 Oct. 19/1 A young doctor is promised a job..if he can discover which of four horrifically insane patients is really the head of the asylum. |