horrible

Forms

horrible m or f (masculine and feminine plural horribles)^[1] Medieval texts often write it without h-: orrible.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin horribilis (“terrifying, dreadful”), a learned word.^[3][4][5][1] The Latin adjective is formed from horreō (“to bristle, to stand on end; to shudder”) with the suffix -bilis.^[6][1][7]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *χors-ē- (“to be stiff”) and Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰr̥s-eh₁- (“to be stiff, surprised”).^[8] Other learned Spanish words from it are horror, horrendo and hórrido.^[3][4] The same Latin word is Portuguese horrível, Catalan horrible, French horrible and Italian orribile.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas gives as first record the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca, and the CDH has it there (c. 1215, known from a 14th-century copy): „non es pecado tan grande ni tan orrible” “there is no sin so great or so horrible” that God will not forgive it for penance.^[3][2] The first record without a later copy is in Juan Fernández de Heredia's works of 1376–1396.^[2] The BDELC dates it from Juan de Mena in 1438.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Corominas also cites it from the Corbacho, Santillana, Juan de Mena, Alfonso de Palencia and Garcilaso, yet Gregorio Hernández still treated it as a new word in his translation of the Aeneid.^[3] Cabrera notes that Nebrija did not put it in his Spanish dictionary, and that Garcilaso used it in his second Eclogue: „Para espantarme de la horrible historia”.^[10] Autoridades defines it as frightening, fierce and terrible.^[11] Corominas calls it popular today.^[3]

The modern colloquial senses weaken the meaning to “very ugly”, “very intense” and “very bad”.^[5][12] In popular speech in Mexico, as with bruto, it can be used for praise, and in Puerto Rico it has meant “beautiful, out of this world”.^[13][14]

Timeline

• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca, in a 14th-century copy.^[3][2]
• 1376–1396 – Juan Fernández de Heredia uses orrible in several translations.^[2]
• 1438 – Juan de Mena, Coronación.^[3][4]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses horribilis as cosa terrible & espantable.^[15]
• c. 1525 – first record of horrendo.^[3]
• 1618 – the first record from the Americas: eran horribles y espantosas las vozes.^[16]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades: espantoso, fiero y terrible.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. horrible, causing horror: un crimen horrible.^[5][1]
2. (colloquial) Very ugly, feo: Llevaba un sombrero horrible.^[5]
3. (colloquial) Very intense or marked: un cansancio horrible.^[5][12]
4. (colloquial) Very bad, dreadful: La comida del hotel era horrible.^[5][1]

Word family

• horriblemente
• horribilidad

Related words

• horror
• horrendo
• hórrido
• horroroso
• Latin horribilis
• Portuguese horrível

Usage notes

Horrible has one form for both genders; the superlative is horribilísimo.^[3][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. horrible
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 399
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. horror
5. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. horrible
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 357
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. horrível
10. ^ Cabrera, Ramón (1837), Diccionario de etimologías de la lengua castellana, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta de Marcos Bueno, p. s.v. horrible
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 180
12. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. horrible
13. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 599
14. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. horrible
15. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. horrible
16. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. horrible