different between horrible vs baleful

horrible

English

Etymology

First attested in Middle English (alternately as horrible and orrible) in 1303: from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis, from horr(?re) (tremble) + -ibilis (-ible).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /?h???b?l/
  • (US) IPA(key): /?h???b?l/, /?h???b?l/, [-b??]
  • (NYC, Philadelphia, Ireland) IPA(key): /?h???b?l/

Noun

horrible (plural horribles)

  1. A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick
      Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles!
    • 1982, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Genocide Convention: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate
      A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.
    • 1991, Alastair Scott, Tracks Across Alaska: A Dog Sled Journey
      The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles.
    • 2000, John Dean, CNN interview, January 21, 2000:
      I'm trying to convince him that the criminal behavior that's going on at the White House has to end. And I give him one horrible after the next. I just keep raising them. He sort of swats them away.
    • 2001, Neil K. Komesar, Law's Limits: The Rule of Law and the Supply and Demand of Rights
      Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions.
  2. A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.

Translations

Adjective

horrible (comparative horribler or more horrible, superlative horriblest or most horrible)

  1. Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
  2. Tremendously bad.
    • 2010, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2010, page 599:
      Having now absorbed all or parts of 750 responses to my complaints about Transformers, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that most of those writing agree with me that it is a horrible movie.

Synonyms

  • See Thesaurus:frightening
  • See Thesaurus:bad

Related terms

  • horrific
  • horrify
  • horror
  • horrendous

Translations

References


Asturian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

Adjective

horrible (epicene, plural horribles)

  1. horrible

Related terms

  • horror

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

Pronunciation

  • (Balearic, Central) IPA(key): /u?ri.bl?/
  • (Valencian) IPA(key): /o?ri.ble/

Adjective

horrible (masculine and feminine plural horribles)

  1. horrible

Derived terms

  • horriblement

Related terms

  • horror

French

Etymology

From Old French horrible, orrible, orible, borrowed from Latin horribilis.

Pronunciation

  • (mute h) IPA(key): /?.?ibl/

Adjective

horrible (plural horribles)

  1. horrible; causing horror.

Related terms

  • horreur

Further reading

  • “horrible” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Galician

Alternative forms

  • horríbel

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

Adjective

horrible m or f (plural horribles)

  1. horrible

Derived terms

  • horriblemente

Related terms

  • horror

Middle English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French horrible, orrible, orible, from Latin horribilis.

Adjective

horrible

  1. horrible

Descendants

  • English: horrible

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin horribilis.

Adjective

horrible (plural horribles)

  1. horrible

Derived terms

  • horriblemente

Related terms

  • horror

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baleful

English

Alternative forms

  • balefull (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English baleful, balful, baluful, from Old English bealuful, which being equivalent to bealu +? -ful. Surface analysis as bale (evil, woe) +? -ful. See bale for further etymology.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /?be?l.f?l/

Adjective

baleful (comparative more baleful, superlative most baleful)

  1. Portending evil; ominous.
    • 1873, James Thomson (B.V.), The City of Dreadful Night
      The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms,
      Amidst the soundless solitudes immense
      Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.
    • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter XII, p. 194, [1]
      [] he went off alone with his family, and, watched by the day's red baleful eye, pumped the pump-car homeward, []
    • 1949, Naomi Replansky, “Complaint of the Ignorant Wizard” in Ring Song (published 1952):
      I learned the speech of birds; now every tree
      Screams out to me a baleful prophecy.
  2. Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering.
    • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book I), line 56
      round he throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay ...

Derived terms

  • balefully
  • unbaleful

Translations


Middle English

Alternative forms

  • balful, baluful, balefulle, balefule, balleful, balefull, balful, balfulle

Etymology

From Old English bealuful; equivalent to bale +? -ful.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /?ba?lful/, /?balful/

Adjective

baleful

  1. evil, horrible, malicious
  2. (rare) dangerous, harmful, injurious
  3. (rare) worthless, petty, lowly

Derived terms

  • balfulli

Descendants

  • English: baleful

References

  • “b?leful, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-19.

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