Horrendous

How to spell horrendous

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce horrendous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does horrendous mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely unpleasant, shocking, or bad.

Horrendous in a sentence

• The commute home took three hours because of a horrendous accident on the motorway.

• She opened the envelope and found a horrendous phone bill for the holiday calls.

Where does horrendous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb horrere, which literally meant 'to bristle' or 'to stand on end', as hair does when a person shudders with fear or cold. From that verb Latin formed horrendus, a gerundive meaning roughly 'that which makes one shudder' or 'fit to be dreaded'. English adopted it as 'horrendous' in the seventeenth century, keeping the strong sense of something so dreadful it provokes a physical reaction. The same horrere root sits beneath a whole family of everyday English words, including 'horror', 'horrible', and 'horrid', which is why the double r at the front feels familiar. Over time the meaning softened in casual use, so that a horrendous traffic jam or bill is simply extremely bad rather than literally terrifying, though the spelling still carries that ancient sense of bristling dread.

How the word is built

• horr- (from Latin horrere: to bristle, shudder)
• -end- (gerundive element)
• -ous (full of)