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Atrocious vs Savage - What's the difference?

atrocious | savage | Synonyms |

Atrocious is a synonym of savage.


As an adjective atrocious

is frightful, evil, cruel or monstrous.

As a proper noun savage is

.

atrocious

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Frightful, evil, cruel or monstrous.
  • Offensive or heinous. (rfex)
  • Very bad; abominable or disgusting.
  • *
    • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.}}

    Usage notes

    * Nouns to which "atrocious" is often applied: crime, act, murder, condition, spelling, grammar.

    Related terms

    * atrocity

    savage

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • wild; not cultivated
    • a savage wilderness
  • * Dryden
    • savage berries of the wood
  • barbaric; not civilized
    • savage manners
  • * 1719-
    • I observed a place where there had been a fire made, and a circle dug in the earth, like a cockpit, where I supposed the savage wretches had sat down to their human feastings upon the bodies of their fellow-creatures.
  • * E. D. Griffin
    • What nation, since the commencement of the Christian era, ever rose from savage to civilized without Christianity?
  • fierce and ferocious
    • savage beasts
    a savage spirit
  • brutal, vicious or merciless
    • He gave the dog a savage kick.
    The woman was killed in a savage manner.
  • (UK, slang) unpleasant or unfair
    • - I'll see you in detention.
    - Ah, savage !

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (pejorative) An uncivilized or feral human; a barbarian.
  • * 1847 , , Tancred: or The New Crusade , page 251
    • 'Well, my lord, I don't know,' said Freeman with a sort of jolly sneer; 'we have been dining with the savages'.'
    'They are not '     savages     , Freeman.'
    'Well, my lord, they have not much more clothes, anyhow; and as for knives and forks, there is not such a thing known.'
  • (figuratively) A defiant person.

    • Verb

    (transitive)
  • To attack or assault someone or something ferociously or without restraint.
  • (figuratively) To criticise vehemently.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
    • , title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}
  • (of an animal) To attack with the teeth.
  • (obsolete) To make savage.
  • * South
    • Its bloodhounds, savaged by a cross of wolf.

    Anagrams

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