Horrific

How to spell horrific

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce horrific

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does horrific mean?

1. adjectiveCausing horror, shock, or extreme dismay; dreadful.

Horrific in a sentence

• The news report described the horrific aftermath of the motorway crash.

• Survivors gave horrific accounts of the fire that swept through the building.

Where does horrific come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin horrificus, meaning 'causing dread' or 'dreadful', which was built from two parts: the verb horrere, meaning literally 'to bristle' or 'to stand on end' (the way hair does in fear), and facere, meaning 'to make' or 'to cause'. The original image is wonderfully physical: something so frightening that it makes your skin crawl and your hair stand up. The same horrere root gives English a whole family of relatives, including 'horror', 'horrid', and 'horrendous', and that shared spine explains the doubled r at the start. English adopted 'horrific' in the seventeenth century, at first meaning simply 'causing horror', and over time it broadened into the everyday intensifier for anything shockingly bad. The main spelling trap is remembering the double r near the front and the single c before the -ic ending.

How the word is built

• horr- (from Latin horrere: to bristle, shudder)
• -ific (from facere: to make, cause)