different between atrocity vs devilry

English

Etymology

From Middle French atrocité, from Latin atrox (“terrible, cruel”), from ?ter (“matte black”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??t??s?ti/
• enPR: ?-tr?s'?-t?
• Rhymes: -?s?ti

Noun

atrocity (countable and uncountable, plural atrocities)

1. (countable) An extremely cruel act; a horrid act of injustice.
   • 1662, William Pynchon, The Covenant of Nature Made with Adam, London, for the author, Chapter 11, Section 3, p. 277,^[1]

     […] it seemed an atrocity or cruelty to Narses a good General, to take punishment of innoxious Hostages:

   • 1795, Helen Maria Williams, Letters Containing a Sketch of the Politics of France, London: G. G. and J. Robinson, Letter 4, p. 61,^[2]

     It was impossible for the convention to suffer the crimes they had committed, and the still greater atrocities which they had meditated, to pass unnoticed.

   • 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, New York and London: Street & Smith, Chapter 7, p. 87,^[3]

     “Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”
2. (uncountable) The quality or state of being atrocious; enormous wickedness; extreme criminality or cruelty.

   Synonyms: atrociousness, brutality, heinousness

   • 1553, John Bradford, letter, in Miles Coverdale (ed.), Certain Most Godly, Fruitful, and Comfortable letters, London: John Day, 1564, pp. 481-482,^[4]

     Thys wil I muse on, & way with my self, [tha]t I may dulye knowe, both in me and in al other things, the atrocitie and bitternesse of synne which dwelleth in me, & so may the more hartely geue ouer my self wholy to [th]e lord Christ my Sauiour,

   • 1759, Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, London: A. Millar, Part 1, Section 3, Chapter 4, p. 81,^[5]

     What character is so detestable as that of one who takes pleasure to sow dissention among friends, and to turn their most tender love into mortal hatred? Yet wherein does the atrocity of this so much abhorred injury consist? […] It is in depriving them of that friendship itself, in robbing them of each others affections […]

   • 1843, William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, New York: Harper, Volume 2, Book 4, Chapter 8, p. 284,^[6]

     an apology devised after the commission of the deed, to cover up its atrocity

   • 1904, Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, New York: Harper, Part 1, Chapter 8, p. 119,^[8]

     Hernandez […] had been an inoffensive, small ranchero, kidnapped with circumstances of peculiar atrocity from his home during one of the civil wars, and forced to serve in the army.

3. (countable) An object considered to be extremely unattractive or undesirable.

   Synonym: abomination

   • 1872, Mark Twain, Roughing It, Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, Chapter 43, p. 300,^[9]

     […] some of the printers were good singers and others good performers on the guitar and on that atrocity the accordeon—

   • 1924, Edna Ferber, So Big, New York: Grosset and Dunlap, Chapter 7, p. 114,^[10]

     The Pools had given them a “hanging lamp,” coveted by the farmer’s wife; a hideous atrocity in yellow, with pink roses on its shade and prisms dangling and tinkling all around the edge.

Related terms

• atrocious

See also

• crime against humanity
• war crime

Translations

Further reading

• atrocity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• atrocity in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• atrocity at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• citatory

English

Alternative forms

• deviltry

Etymology

From Middle English develrye; equivalent to devil +? -ry.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d?v.?l.?i/, /?d?v.?l.?i/
• enPR: d?v'?l-r?

Noun

devilry (countable and uncountable, plural devilries)

1. mischief.
2. Wickedness; cruelty.
3. An action performed with the help of a devil; witchcraft.
4. An act of such mischief, wickedness, cruelty, or witchcraft.

Translations