Monstrous means shockingly huge, ugly or wicked. The word can point at size or at morality.
The size sense is exaggeration, so a monstrous helping or a monstrous building means enormous and probably ugly with it. The moral sense is serious, and a monstrous act or a monstrous injustice is a genuine condemnation. Both come from monster, which originally meant a portent or a warning sign. British English also uses it for unreasonableness, since a monstrous suggestion is outrageous rather than evil.
1adjectivemonstrousShockingly large or ugly.
“They built a monstrous extension on the back.”
2adjectiveoutrageouslyOutrageously wrong or cruel.
“It was a monstrous thing to say to a child.”
Proto-Indo-European
*men-
Latin
monstrosus
Old French
monstrueuse
Middle English
monstrous
English, today
monstrous
From Middle English monstrous, from Old French monstrueuse, monstrüos, from Latin monstrosus. Compare monstruous. by surface analysis, monster + -ous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 28 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word