horrid

Borrowed from Latin horridus (“rough, bristly, savage, shaggy, rude”), from horrere (“to bristle”). See horrent, horror, ordure.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒɹɪd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔɹɪd/

  • Audio (General American):

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• (New York City, Philadelphia) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑɹɪd/
• Rhymes: -ɒɹɪd

horrid (comparative horrider or more horrid, superlative horridest or most horrid)

1. (archaic) Bristling, rough, rugged.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 31:

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

   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [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:

     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.

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1. Causing horror or dread.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:frightening

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

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

   • 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

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

   • 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, The Sea Voyage, V-iv, 1866, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Volume 2, page 327,

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

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

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

2. Offensive, disagreeable, abominable, execrable.

   horrid weather

   The other girls in class are always horrid to Jane.

   • 1668 October 23, Samuel Pepys, Diary, 1858, Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Volume 4, 6th Edition, page 39,

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

   • 1649, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round The World‎, page 362:

     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.

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• According to OED, horrid and horrible were originally almost synonymous, but in modern use horrid is somewhat less strong and tending towards the "offensive, disagreeable" sense.

• abominable
• alarming
• appalling
• awful
• dire
• dreadful
• frightful
• harrowing
• hideous
• horrible
• revolting
• shocking
• terrific

• “horrid”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “horrid”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.