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Horrible vs Rank - What's the difference?

horrible | rank | Synonyms |

Horrible is a synonym of rank.


As adjectives the difference between horrible and rank

is that horrible is causing horror; terrible; shocking while rank is heavy, serious, grievous.

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)
  • 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
    • 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 !
  • * 1982 , United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Genocide Convention: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate
    • A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.
  • * 1991 , Alastair Scott, Tracks Across Alaska: A Dog Sled Journey
    • The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles .
  • * 2000 , John Dean, 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.
  • * 2001 , Neil K. Komesar, Law's Limits: The Rule of Law and the Supply and Demand of Rights
    • Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions.
  • A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.

    • Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • 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.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Related terms

    * horrific * horrify * horror * horrendous

    References

    ----

    rank

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) .

    Adjective

  • Strong of its kind or in character; unmitigated; virulent; thorough; utter.
  • Strong in growth; growing with vigour or rapidity, hence, coarse or gross.
  • * Bible, (w) xli. 5
    • And, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1944, author=(w)
    • , title= The Three Corpse Trick, chapter=5 , passage=The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.}}
  • Suffering from overgrowth or hypertrophy; plethoric.
  • * 1899 , (Joseph Conrad),
    • The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver—over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple
  • Causing strong growth; producing luxuriantly; rich and fertile.
    • (Mortimer)
  • Strong to the senses; offensive; noisome.
  • Having a very strong and bad taste or odor.
  • * (Robert Boyle) (1627-1691)
    • Divers sea fowls taste rank of the fish on which they feed.
  • Complete, used as an intensifier (usually negative, referring to incompetence).
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=March 1, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC
    • , title= Chelsea 2-1 Man Utd , passage=Chelsea remain rank outsiders to retain their crown and they still lie 12 points adrift of United, but Ancelotti will regard this as a performance that supports his insistence that they can still have a say when the major prizes are handed out this season.}}
  • (label) Gross, disgusting.
  • (label) Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.
  • (label) Inflamed with venereal appetite.
    • (Shakespeare)
    Synonyms
    * (bad odor) stinky, smelly ** See also: pong (UK) * (complete) complete, utter

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (obsolete) Quickly, eagerly, impetuously.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.iii:
    • The seely man seeing him ryde so rancke , / And ayme at him, fell flat to ground for feare [...].
  • * Fairfax
    • That rides so rank and bends his lance so fell.

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) , which is of uncertain origin. Akin to (etyl) . More at (ring).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A row of people or things organized in a grid pattern, often soldiers [the corresponding term for the perpendicular columns in such a pattern is "file"].
    • The front rank''' kneeled to reload while the second '''rank fired over their heads.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1907, author=
    • , title=The Dust of Conflict , chapter=7 citation , passage=Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks but clusters, from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs
  • # (chess) one of the eight horizontal lines of squares on a chessboard [the corresponding term for a vertical line is "file"].
  • (music) In a pipe organ, a set of pipes of a certain quality for which each pipe corresponds to one key or pedal.
  • One's position in a list sorted by a shared property such as physical location, population, or quality
    • Based on your test scores, you have a rank of 23.
    The fancy hotel was of the first rank.
  • (class)The level of one's position in a class-based society
  • a level in an organization such as the military
    • Private First Class (PFC) is the lowest rank in the Marines.
    He rose up through the ranks of the company from mailroom clerk to CEO.
  • (taxonomy) a level in a scientific taxonomy system
    • Phylum is the taxonomic rank below kingdom and above class.
  • (linear algebra) Maximal number of linearly independent columns (or rows) of a matrix.
  • The dimensionality of an array (computing) or tensor (mathematics).
  • (chess) one of the eight horizontal lines of squares on a chessboard (i.e., those which run from letter to letter). The analog vertical lines are the files .
    • Derived terms
    * break rank * close ranks * pull rank

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To place abreast, or in a line.
  • To have a ranking.
    • Their defense ranked third in the league.
  • To assign a suitable place in a class or order; to classify.
  • * I. Watts
    • Ranking all things under general and special heads.
  • * Broome
    • Poets were ranked in the class of philosophers.
  • * Dr. H. More
    • Heresy is ranked with idolatry and witchcraft.
  • (US) To take rank of; to outrank.

    • Anagrams

    * * * English intensifiers ----