odious

From Middle English odious, from Old French odieus, from Latin odiōsus, from odium (“hate”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊ.di.əs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊ.di.əs/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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• Rhymes: -əʊdiəs

odious (comparative more odious, superlative most odious)

1. Arousing or meriting strong dislike, aversion, or intense displeasure.

   Scrubbing the toilets in the bar at the end of a Saturday night is an odious task.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , lines 179-80:

     You told a lie, an odious damned lie: / Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!

   • 1750, “Theodora”, Thomas Morell (lyrics), George Frideric Handel (music)‎:

     I own no crime, unless it be a crime to've hindered you from perpetrating that which would have made you odious to mankind, at least the fairest half.

   • 1818, Mary Shelley, chapter 6, in Frankenstein‎, archived from the original on 8 May 2013:

     He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake.

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in The History of Pendennis. , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     He always detested the trade, and it was only necessity, and the offer of his mother’s brother, a London apothecary of low family, into which Pendennis’s father had demeaned himself by marrying, that forced John Pendennis into so odious a calling.

   • 1903 December 26, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC:

     "He was a dreadful person, a bully to everyone else, but to me something infinitely worse. He made odious love to me, boasted of his wealth, said that if I married him I would have the finest diamonds in London, and finally, when I would have nothing to do with him, he seized me in his arms one day after dinner—he was hideously strong—and he swore that he would not let me go until I had kissed him."

   • 2023 September 16, HarryBlank, “Borrowing Trouble”, in SCP Foundation‎, archived from the original on 15 June 2024:

     Gedeon Van Rompay had the dubious distinction of being the only Site employee personally hired by Edwin Falkirk, former All Sections Chief and perennial piece of human trash. Lillian had found it easy not to hold this against the man, but only because there were so many other odious things about him to choose from. He was misogynist, he was chauvinistic, he was boorish, he was violent. Just about the only metric on which she rated Van Rompay higher than Falkirk was transphobia; the big man made no distinction between varieties of womanhood, feeling superior to all of them equally.

• detestable, hated, reviled, unsavory, contemptible, despicable

• odium

• iodous