horrifying

UK/ˈhɔːɹɪ.faɪ.ɪŋ/US/ˈhɔːɹɪ.faɪ.ɪŋ/

adjectiveB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,709 of 15,258leans spoken

Horrifying means causing shock and disgust. A horrifying account.

It is stronger than shocking and implies something morally wrong rather than merely upsetting. What is horrifying in one decade is often quite ordinary in the records of an earlier one.

Definitions of horrifying

1adjectivehorrifyingCausing shock and disgust.B2
“The horrifying part was how long everybody had known.”

horrifying is a quality.

Also accepted in games: appalling

Practise this word

horrifying in the wild

The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting.
The War Game
The confessional poet's engagement with personal experience has been explained by literary critics as an effort to distance oneself from the horrifying social realities of the twentieth century.
Confessional poetry
By contrast, terror is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience.
Horror and terror
The plot revolves around a young couple move into a secure gated community and discover its horrifying secret.
Community (Fear Itself)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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