horrendous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin horrendus (“dreadful, to be shuddered at”) with the English suffix -ous,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the gerundive of horreō (“to bristle, shudder, tremble”),^[7][8][5][9] which is from Proto-Indo-European *ghers- (“to bristle”).^[5][9] The same Latin verb gave horror, horrible and horrid.^[5][9] The ending was added after the pattern of tremendous and stupendous.^[2][6] An earlier English adjective without the suffix, horrend, was used about 1420;^[2][5] Barnhart dates it probably 1440.^[4] The OED compares Old French horrende, with the same meaning.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Such as to cause horror; terrible, dreadful: 1659 in Barnhart and the MWU,^[4][8] 1661 in the OED, in James Howell.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word kept its literal sense of something to be shuddered at,^[2][5] but the Shorter Oxford notes that it is now colloquial, used for anything awful or frightful,^[6] and the MWU quotes it of heavy taxes.^[8] Collins treats it as another word for horrific.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1420 – the earlier form horrend.^[2]
• 1659 – horrendous, dreadful.^[4][8]
• 1661 – first quotation in the OED, in James Howell.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing horror; dreadful or horrific: a horrendous crash on the motorway.^[8][10][2]
2. (informal) Very bad, unpleasant or excessive: The queue at the passport office was horrendous.^[6][8]

Word family

• horrendously

Related words

• horrible
• horrid
• horrific
• horrify
• horror
• hirsute
• tremendous
• stupendous

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins