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):

    (file)

• (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 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.

   • 1720, [Daniel Defoe], The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton, London: J Brotherton, , J Graves , A Dodd, , and T Warner, , →OCLC, pages 69–70:

     As ſoon as vve had fired, they ſet up the horrideſt Yell, or Hovvling, partly raiſed by thoſe that vvere vvounded, and partly by thoſe that pitied and condoled the Bodies they ſavv lye dead, that I never heard any thing like it before or ſince.

   • 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:

     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 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.