hideous — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Extremely or shockingly ugly.

   Examples

   I’m sorry to break it to you, but your dress looks truly hideous.

   the Duke's army departed unmolested : but the highway along which he retired presented a piteous and hideous spectacle.

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   Like the "Kas," these locomotives were originally semi-streamlined, although their conical snout was not nearly so hideous as the sloping mock-radiators adorning the bigger engines.

2. Having a very unpleasant or frightening sound.

   Examples

   He started up, growling at first, but finding his leg broken, fell down again; and then got upon three legs, and gave the most hideous roar that ever I heard.

3. Hateful; shocking.

   Examples

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   [W]hat may this meane, / That thou, dead corſe, againe in compleate ſteele, / Reuiſſits thus the glimſes of the Moone, / Making night hideous, and vve fooles of nature, / So horridely to ſhake our diſpoſition, / VVith thoughts beyond the reaches of our ſoules?

   Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver.

4. Morally offensive; shocking; detestable.

   Examples

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   when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah’s head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep.

Adjective

1. grossly offensive to decency or morality; causing horror

   Synonyms

   horridhorrificoutrageous

   Examples

   subjected to outrageous cruelty

   a hideous pattern of injustice

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   horrific conditions in the mining industry

2. so extremely ugly as to be terrifying

   Synonyms

   repulsive

   Examples

   a hideous scar

   a repulsive mask