Horrible vs Execrable - What's the difference?
horrible | execrable | Related terms |
A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
* 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby Dick
* 1982 , United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Genocide Convention: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate
* 1991 , Alastair Scott, Tracks Across Alaska: A Dog Sled Journey
* 2000 , John Dean,
* 2001 , Neil K. Komesar, Law's Limits: The Rule of Law and the Supply and Demand of Rights
A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.
Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
*
*:Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible , deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
*, comment=The New Yorker, March 19
, passage=Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him.}}
*, author=(Ray Bradbury)
, passage=Some of us have had plastic surgery on our faces and fingerprints. Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end.}}
Tremendously wrong or errant.
*{{quote-book, year=1933, title=(My Life and Hard Times), author=(James Thurber)
, passage=Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.}}
Of the poorest quality.
Hateful.
* 1779 , Jefferson, letter to Patrick Henry written on March 27
* {{quote-book
, date = 2001-06-01
, title = Guts: A Comedy of Manners
, first = David
, last = Langford
, authorlink = David Langford
, coauthors = Grant, John
, publisher = Wildside Press
, isbn = 9781587154485
, page = 72
, pageurl = http://books.google.com/books?id=XloXRhUhamIC&pg=PA72&dq=execrable
, passage = The arcanely evil words of that despicable, loathsome, suppressed, vile, pululating, odious, nictating, repellent, repugnant, noxious, abhorrent, abominable, tory, execrable , nauseous work, Ye Boke of Guts , moved as if on a conveyor belt before his eyes.
}}
Execrable is a synonym of horrible.
As adjectives the difference between horrible and execrable
is that horrible is causing horror; terrible; shocking while execrable is of the poorest quality.As a noun horrible
is a thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.horrible
English
Noun
(en noun)- Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles !
- A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.
- The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles .
CNN interview, January 21, 2000:
- I'm trying to convince him that the criminal behavior that's going on at the White House has to end. And I give him one horrible after the next. I just keep raising them. He sort of swats them away.
- Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions.
Adjective
(en-adj)Synonyms
* See alsoReferences
execrable
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- But is an enemy so execrable , that, though in captivity, his wishes and comforts are to be disregarded and even crossed? I think not. It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.