The definition of horrid is something that is unpleasant, disagreeable or terrible.
An example of something that would be described as horrid is the taste of spoiled milk.
- Archaic bristling; shaggy; rough
- causing a feeling of horror; terrible; revolting
- very bad, ugly, unpleasant, etc.
Origin of horridClassical Latin horridus from horrere, to bristle, shake, be afraid from Indo-European base an unverified form ?hers-, to bristle from source gorse
- Causing horror; dreadful.
- Extremely disagreeable; offensive.
- Archaic Bristling; rough.
Origin of horridAlteration ( influenced by Latin horridus bristling ) of Middle English horred past participle of horren to bristle from Latin horrēre to tremble, bristle
(comparative horrider or more horrid, superlative horridest or most horrid)
- (archaic) bristling, rough, rugged
- His haughtie Helmet. horrid all with gold,//Both glorious brightnesse and great terror bredd. - Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, I-vii-31
- Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn. - John Dryden
- Ye grots and caverns shagg's with horrid thorn! - Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, I-20
- causing horror or dread
- Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,//that we the horrider may seem to those//Which chance to find us. - Shakespeare, Cymbeline, IV-ii
- I myself will be//The priest, and boldly do those horrid rites//You shake to think on. - John Fletcher, Sea Voyage, V-iv
- Not in the legions Of horrid hell. - Shakespeare, Macbeth, IV-iii
- What say you then to fair Sir Percivale,//And of the horrid foulness that he wrought? - Alfred Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien
- offensive, disagreeable, abominable, execrable
- 1668 My Lord Chief Justice Keeling hath laid the constable by the heels to answer it next Sessions: which is a horrid shame. - Samuel Pepys, Diary, October 23
- About the middle of November we began to work on our Ship's bottom, which we found very much eaten with the Worm: For this is a horrid place for Worms. - William Dampier, Voyages, I-362
- Already I your tears survey,//Already hear the horrid things they say. - Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, IV-108
- "Horrid" and "horrible" originally had different meanings, but have become almost synonymous over the years.