Hideous means extremely ugly. A hideous carpet, a hideous mistake, absolutely hideous.
It is stronger than ugly and often used with a certain relish about wallpaper, curtains and other people's taste. Applied to events it means horrifying rather than unattractive: a hideous accident, hideous injuries. Note hideously, which is common before adjectives — hideously expensive; and that hideous once meant terrifying rather than ugly, which is why it still sounds too strong for a carpet.
1adjectivehideousExtremely ugly.
“The carpet is hideous and has outlasted three owners.”
2adjectivehorrifyingHorrifying.
“It was a hideous accident and nobody who saw it forgot it.”
hideous is a quality of ugliness.
Old French hideus comes from hide, meaning fear or horror. The word meant frightful before it meant ugly, and the shift from causing terror to causing distaste is the same softening that happened to awful and terrible.
Old French
hideus
Anglo-Norman
hidous
Middle English
hidous
English, today
hideous
Built from
From Middle English hidous, from Anglo-Norman hidous, from Old French hideus, hydus (“that which inspires terror”), from earlier hisdos, from Old French hisda (“horror, fear”), of uncertain and disputed origin. Probably from Proto-West Germanic agisiþu (“horror, terror”), from Proto-West Germanic agisōn (“to frighten, terrorise”), from Proto-Germanic agaz (“terror, fear”), from Proto-Indo-European h₂egʰ- (“to frighten”). Cognate with Old High German egisa, egidī (“horror”), Old English egesa (“fear, dread”), Gothic 𐌰𐌲𐌹𐍃 (“fear, terror”). Alternative etymology cites possible derivation from Latin hispidosus (“rugged”), from hispidus (“rough, bristly”), yet the semantic evolution is less plausible.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Everyday Adjectives