Definition of atrocious in English:

atrocious

Pronunciation: /əˈtrəʊʃəs/

adjective

1horrifyingly wicked: atrocious cruelties

This helps to explain why murder is such an atrocious crime.
It was possibly the most atrocious monstrosity every pulled off on American soil.
They watched the hideous spectacle, stunned by the monster's atrocious acts.
Women and children there are subjected to atrocious harassment and torture, particularly in the workplace.
Since no Coalition Forces were allowed into the city, they were able to get away with those atrocious acts without much trouble.
Upon returning to the United States, after having seen atrocious abuses first hand, he says that he could not stay silent.
If the tour were cancelled, a valuable opportunity to raise public awareness of the atrocious regime would be lost.
The atrocious acts of terror in New York have shocked the world.
You can't let that psychological battle have the victim all of a sudden take on the guilt for the atrocious acts of the perpetrator.
Nor was Stalin's behaviour in Ukraine, however atrocious, on a par with Hitler's total extermination strategy.
The people who are committing these atrocious acts are few, but they are mainly foreigners.
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but soldiers and bandits.
In the old orthodox society the Sati system of widows mounting the funeral pyre of their husbands was an atrocious practice.
Let us picture a small, comparatively weak, nation, governed by someone who commits any number of atrocious crimes to stay in power.
Our grandfathers witnessed the most atrocious period ever to have occurred; hopefully nothing like that will ever happen again.
Jones Griffiths and others tried to interest the news agencies in pictures that told the truth about that atrocious war.
That such a policy may have stirred up the enmity which resulted in last week's atrocious acts of violence should not be dismissed out of hand.
He did an atrocious act and he got what he wanted, lots of publicity for his cause and the right to die a martyr.
Who can say they wouldn't do something atrocious if in an extreme situation?
We are exporting atrocious suffering, disease and death in poor countries where controls are not implemented.

brutal, barbaric, barbarous, brutish, savage, vicious, wicked, cruel, nasty, ruthless, merciless, villainous, murderous, heinous, nefarious, monstrous, base, low, low-down, vile, inhuman, infernal, dark, fiendish, hellish, diabolical, ghastly, horrible;

abominable, outrageous, offensive, hateful, disgusting, despicable, contemptible, loathsome, odious, revolting, repellent, repugnant, abhorrent, harrowing, nightmarish, gruesome, grisly, sickening, nauseating, horrifying, hideous, unspeakable, unforgivable, intolerable, beyond the pale, scandalous, flagrant, execrable

informal horrid, gross, sick-making, sick

British informal beastly

archaic disgustful, loathly, scurvy

rare egregious, flagitious, cacodemonic, facinorous

View synonyms

1.1 of a very poor quality; extremely bad or unpleasant: he attempted an atrocious imitation of my English accent atrocious weather

More example sentences

The generally poor and occasionally atrocious quality of the writing doesn't help.
It's unforgivably bad journalism, laughably poor sub-editing, and atrocious proof-reading.
The weather was atrocious, with heavy snow and high winds.
The weather conditions were atrocious, so thankfully the sale was indoors.
All soccer fixtures were cancelled at the weekend due to the atrocious weather conditions.
Of course, the dialogue is still atrocious, and the actors' delivery of it is poor.
The supporting cast was atrocious and really brought the overall quality of the movie down with it.
Frankly, I'm disgusted by the atrocious writing I have to read every day as part of my job.
The policy is atrocious and an insult to soldiers and their families.
I did notice that the spelling in most of the unwanted e-mails I happen to read is generally atrocious.
I have written before about how atrocious an assumption this is.
We paid £3,000 for an all-inclusive holiday and the food was atrocious.
No more seedy bars, inept passes or atrocious chat-up lines.
I have come across parents like him who simply shrug their shoulders when you outline their children's atrocious behaviour.
But we poor deluded souls keep colouring our hair in the wildest and most atrocious colours possible.
Also, I have witnessed the most atrocious driving by some Bradford taxi drivers, placing other road users in jeopardy.
I don't think I've been getting enough exercise and my posture is atrocious.
His timing is atrocious.
But it was terrible for everyone, and people not in my cohort also told me the first year is always atrocious.
The writing was atrocious, scribbled in black ink, and Karen had to focus on each word to decipher it.

Synonyms

appalling, dreadful, terrible, very bad, unpleasant, lamentable, woeful, miserable, poor, inadequate, unsatisfactory

informal abysmal, dire, rotten, crummy, lousy, yucky, godawful, the pits

British informal shocking, duff, beastly, chronic, pants, a load of pants, rubbish, rubbishy, ropy, poxy

vulgar slang crap, crappy, chickenshit

archaic direful

View synonyms

Derivatives

atrociously: Pronunciation: /əˈtrəʊʃəsli/

adverb

Example sentences
90 per cent of people here drive atrociously.
After making my first tuition payment last week, I'm thinking of launching a one-man crusade against the atrociously high cost of higher education today.
Factory-farmed chickens are transported and slaughtered under atrociously inhumane conditions, says Weisberg.

Given the way mothers have been atrociously treated, who can blame young women for not being prepared to take the risk.

But she'd told me calmly that I was grounded the whole vacation for behaving atrociously.

The drinks are atrociously overpriced and under-strong.

As I have set out earlier, we have both suffered atrociously in the past and substantially depend on one another.
atrociousness: Pronunciation: /əˈtrəʊʃəsnəs/

noun

Example sentences
Stravinsky was, in Adorno's opinion, evading existentialist man's duty to confront his own times in all their complexity and atrociousness.
In her autobiography she said curiosity had made her take the job, but 60 years on she admits she failed to let herself see the atrociousness of the regime she worked for.
In the opinion of the Chamber, there is no doubt that considering their undeniable scale, their systematic nature and their atrociousness, the massacres were aimed at exterminating the group that was targeted.

Despite its revulsion at the atrociousness of the law, the appeals court did not take the next logical step and void the law completely.

Origin

mid 17th century: from Latin atrox, atroc- 'cruel' + -ious.

Whereas nowadays atrocious tends to describe something such as bad weather or poor English, it used to be a stronger word which referred to great savagery, cruelty, or wickedness, as in Charles Darwin's reference to ‘Atrocious acts which can only take place in a slave country’ (1845). The source of the word was Latin atrox ‘fierce or cruel’, based on ater ‘black’ and literally meaning ‘black-looking’. Atrocity (mid 16th century) has not had its sense weakened in the same way.

Words that rhyme with atrocious

ferocious, precocious

For editors and proofreaders

Line breaks: atro|cious