different between gruesome vs insufferable

English

Etymology

From grue (“to shudder”) +? -some. Compare Danish and Norwegian grusom (“horrible”), German grausam (“cruel”), and Dutch gruwzaam (“gruesome; cruel”).

Adjective

gruesome (comparative gruesomer or more gruesome, superlative gruesomest or most gruesome)

1. Repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly.
   • 1912: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6

     In the middle of the floor lay a skeleton, every vestige of flesh gone from the bones to which still clung the mildewed and moldered remnants of what had once been clothing. Upon the bed lay a similar gruesome thing, but smaller, while in a tiny cradle near-by was a third, a wee mite of a skeleton.

Translations

English

Etymology

in- +? sufferable

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): [?n?s?f??bl?]
• (US) enPR: ?n-s?f'?r-?-b?l, IPA^(key): /?n?s?f??b?l/, [?n?s?f??bl?]

Adjective

insufferable (comparative more insufferable, superlative most insufferable)

1. Not sufferable; very difficult or impossible to endure.
   • 1894, Henry James, The Coxon Fund, ch. 4:

     Saltram was incapable of keeping the engagements which, after their separation, he had entered into with regard to his wife, a deeply wronged, justly resentful, quite irreproachable and insufferable person.

   • 1913, Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country, ch. 13:

     Marvell . . . thought Peter a bore in society and an insufferable nuisance on closer terms.

   • 2011 June 7, "Chaos in Syria," Time:

     The oppressive heat has become insufferable in Syria — and as the temperature climbs, emotions get harder to contain.

Synonyms

• intolerable, unbearable

Related terms

• insufferableness
• insufferably

Translations

References

• insufferable at OneLook Dictionary Search