beastly

From Middle English beestly, bestely, beastelich, equivalent to beast +‎ -ly. Compare West Frisian bistachtich (“beastly”), Dutch beestachtig (“beastly”), German biestig (“beastly”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈbiːstli/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːstli

beastly (comparative beastlier or more beastly, superlative beastliest or most beastly)

1. (UK) Pertaining to, or having the form, nature, or habits of, a beast.
2. (UK) Similar to the nature of a beast; contrary to the nature and dignity of human beings.

   Synonyms: brutal, filthy

   beastly culture

3. (UK, dated) Abominable; very unpleasant.

   beastly weather

   Stop being so beastly to her!

   • 1904, Edith Nesbit, The New Treasure Seekers, Chapter 1:

     And all the time, whenever we went to the Cedars, there was all sorts of silly fuss going on about the beastly wedding; boxes coming from London with hats and jackets in, and wedding presents—all glassy and silvery, or else brooches and chains—and clothes sent down from London to choose from.

4. (slang) Of computer hardware or motor vehicles etc.: ostentatiously powerful.
   • 2010 January 11, Matthew DeCarlo, “Silverstone mini-ITX case can fit Radeon HD 5970”, in TechSpot:

     In addition to a Core i7-860 with a full-sized heatsink and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the company showed its SUGO SG07 housing today's most beastly graphics card, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, which is about 30cm long.

   • 2014, March 21, Tycho de Feijter, “Hummer H2 is a Big Black Beast in the Rain in China”, CarNewsChina.com:

     A very big, very black, and very beastly Hummer H2, Spotted in China in in the rain the great city of Zigong in Sichuan Province.

   • 2018 October 16, Chris Smith, “Huawei just unveiled the most beastly Android phone the world has ever seen”, in BGR:

     Huawei’s Mate 20 phones have instantly become the best iPhone XS rivals out there, at least on paper, and the high-end model is easily the most beastly Android phone the world has seen so far.

Most often used pejoratively, but sense 4 has predominantly positive connotations. Bestial is more narrow, though also often used pejoratively.

• (like a beast): bestial, animalian

beastly (comparative more beastly, superlative most beastly)

1. Like a beast; brutishly.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Beastly he threwe her downe, ne car'd to spill / Her garments gay with scales of fish that all did fill.

   • 1901, The Literary World, volume 63, page 35:

     They have insulted me most beastly. Moreover, they are, everyone of them, black-satan filthmen.

   • 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:

     The baths were mostly tiled showers, with an endless variety of spouting mechanisms, but with one definitely non-Laodicean characteristic in common, a propensity, while in use, to turn instantly beastly hot or blindingly cold upon you, depending on whether your neighbor turned on his cold or his hot to deprive you of a necessary complement in the shower you had so carefully blended.

• baetyls, baylets