horrid

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin horridus (“bristling, rough, shaggy; savage; terrible”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from horreō (“to bristle, tremble, shudder”).^[2][3][7][8] The American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart see it instead as an alteration, under the influence of the Latin word, of Middle English horred (“bristling”),^[9][10] the past participle of horren (“to bristle, tremble”), itself borrowed from the Latin verb.^[11][10] The OED compares Italian orrido.^[2] The same Latin verb gave horror and horrible.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bristling, shaggy, rough: 1590, in Spenser's The Faerie Queene.^[2][10][4] Etymonline dates the sense "hairy, bristling" to the early 15th century;^[3] the MED records horred tailles, bristling tails, about 1410.^[11][10]

Semantic evolution

The literal Latin sense, chiefly poetic, gave way about 1600 to "causing horror, frightful": Barnhart's first record is from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (1601),^[10] the OED's from Marston (1602).^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "hideous; dreadful; shocking" first.^[12] By 1666 the sense had weakened in colloquial use to "offensive, very disagreeable",^[2][10] and an adverb meaning "horridly" is recorded from 1615.^[2][10] Etymonline quotes Fowler: horrible kept its graver sense better, while horrid tended to lose it.^[3] In Scotland and Ireland horrid also meant "great, extraordinary" (horrid prices), and in Scotland, Ireland and Kent it served as an intensive adverb, as in a horrid good man, a very good one.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1410 – Middle English horred, bristling.^[11][10]
• 1590 – bristling, shaggy, rough.^[2][10]
• 1601 – terrible, dreadful.^[10]
• 1615 – adverb, horridly, very objectionably.^[2][10]
• 1666 – weakened colloquial sense, offensive, disagreeable.^[2][10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Very unpleasant or disagreeable: What horrid weather for a picnic.^[14][4]
2. Causing horror; dreadful, hideous or shocking.^[14][4][2]
3. (informal) Unkind or nasty: Don't be horrid to your brother.^[14][4]
4. (archaic) Rough or bristling.^[4][2][5]

Word family

• horridly
• horridness

Related words

• horror
• horrible
• horrify
• abhor

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins