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, stanza 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.

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Ninth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn, / Few paths of human feet, or tracks of beasts, were worn.

2. 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;

   • c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Sea-Voyage. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies , London: Humphrey Robinson, , and for Humphrey Moseley , published 1647, →OCLC, Act V, scene iv:

     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,

3. Offensive, disagreeable, abominable, execrable.

   horrid weather

   The other girls in class are always horrid to Jane.

   • 1628, William Prynne, The Vnlouelinesse, of Louelockes. Or, A Summarie Discourse, Proouing: The Wearing, and Nourishing of a Locke, or Loue-locke, to be Altogether Vnseemely, and Vnlawfull unto Christians. , London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 1:

     [T]hoſe Laſciuious, Immodeſt, VVhoriſh, or vngodly Faſhions, and Attires, vvhich Metamorphiſe, and Transforme, our Light, and Giddie Females of the Superior and Gentile ranke, into ſundry Antique, Horred, and Out-landiſh ſhapes, from day, to day: […]

   • 1668 November 2 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “October 23rd, 1668”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys , volume VIII, London: George Bell & Sons ; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1896, →OCLC:

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

   • 1697, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World. , London: James Knapton, , →OCLC, 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.

   • 1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. , London: Bernard Lintott , →OCLC, canto IV:

     Methinks already I your tears survey, / Already hear the horrid things they say,

• 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.^[1]

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

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