atrocious

From Latin atrōx (“cruel, fierce, frightful”) +‎ -ious.

• enPR: ə-trō′-shəs
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈtɹəʊʃəs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈtɹoʊʃəs/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊʃəs
• Hyphenation: a‧tro‧cious

atrocious (comparative more atrocious, superlative most atrocious)

1. Frightful, evil, cruel, or monstrous.

   Prisons have been the sites of atrocious mistreatment of prisoners.

2. Offensive or heinous.
   • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter III, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 55:

     I had resolved in my own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness; and I banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion.

3. Very bad; abominable, disgusting.

   Their taste in clothes is just atrocious.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Town-Ho’s Story. (As Told at the Golden Inn.)”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 280:

     Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 58:

     The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.